Bilawal Ali Lund
Pakistan and other regional countries have made herculean efforts in brining US-Afghan on one page in order to make peace process in Afghanistan successful and to end long decades of war through political settlement. However, the fact that peace cannot be restored by war but it can be only retained by peace negotiations. The war on terror since 9/11 incident which Afghan has led to the destruction of Infrastructure and loss of precious lives. Pakistan always kept hand to hand with Afghan in every thick and thin circumstances and contributes its struggle to make Afghan free from extremist and militancy because Afghanistan is pivotal to regional connectivity and shared economic prosperity. Amid the Doha Accord US and Taliban had assured that now it is time to end war and promote peace, need of fraternal ties with regional countries and it should be based on mutual respect, cooperation and Afghan territory would never be allowed to use against neighboring countries. Meanwhile, US has begun withdrawal of troops since May 1 and withdrawal of troops will be completed by sept 11. On the contrary, the consequences are not same as neighboring countries have expected. When US started its inception of troops withdrawal on the other hand Taliban insurgents hasstarted capturing territory inside Afghanistan and also carried out attacks on Afghan Armed forces and then hundreds of Afghans National Army fled into Iran and Tajikistan and Taliban insurgents had taken control of 85 percent of territory in Afghanistan. The aggravating situation in Afghanistan indicate it is going to emerge again civil war that could have bad repercussions for Pakistan and Pakistan needs to be ready for new emerging circumstances because Pakistan could suffer the most from the intensified civil war in Afghanistan. It can be perceived that once the refugees started to converge in the tens of thousands, it would be extremely difficult for Pakistan to block them. According to official estimates, up to 700,000 new refugees could reach here while Pakistan is already hosting about 3 million Afghan refugees. Previously, Pakistan had already suffered huge economic loss, terrorism, promoted illicit weapon sale and drug trafficking when it allowed huge number of Afghan refugees . According to official reports Pakistan lost 83000 lives and the war on terror cost the country almost 126$ billion. Currently, Pakistan is not in situation that could handle huge burden of Afghan refugees. Importantly, it would be impossible for Pakistan to identify who are genuine refugees and who may be TTP, Al Qaeda or other terrorists coming into Pakistan territory along with them. There is certain expectation that TTP terrorist could enter Pakistan from Afghanistan in the guise of refugees and carryout attacks. However, India would try its best in order to instable Pakistan by providing aids to terrorist institutions such as TTP by carrying out violent attacks in Pakistan. It can be concluded from above discussion that Pakistan would have to make concrete decisions in order to protect from Taliban insurgents such as borders should be fenced, and arrange strict surveillance along border and Refugees should not be allowed in Pakistan. Pakistan should provide financial aids to Afghan government to protect Kabul from insurgents because stability in Afghanistan is directly linked to Pakistan.
