What does Pakistan’s upsurge in Islamic violence portend?

On February 17^th Pakistan closed all border crossings with Afghanistan while its army began shelling both sides of the border targeting camps belonging to Islamic State affiliates.

This escalations is due to a recent upsurge of terrorist attacks in the country. Last week a series of suicide bombings killed more than 100 people. The worst took place on February 16^th at a Sufi Shrine in the Sindh province where the bomber killed 88 people and wounded over 200. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

The Afghan government criticized Islamabad’s actions saying that the shelling has forced hundreds of people to leave their villages. In return Pakistan asked Kabul to hand over 76 militants based in the country while Afghanistan demanded that Islamabad act against 32 terrorist training centers and 85 militant leaders still active within Pakistan.

Despite its own reputation for harboring terrorists the government of PM Nawaz Sharif insists that it is Afghanistan that allows jihadists to operate. The failure to acknowledge its own role in the spread of terrorism could result in Pakistan suffering more attacks.

Pakistan’s intelligence service, ISI, has provided support for the Taliban while the army drove them into Afghanistan with their military operations. Once inside Afghanistan the Pakistani Taliban splintered and some of them swore allegiance to ISIS. These groups have claimed the responsibility for bombing several Shiite mosques in Afghanistan.

Instead of destroying terrorist cells and training camps the Pakistani military either accommodated them or forced the jihadists to relocate.

When the army was not abating jihadists, it was ignoring them. IS presence in Pakistan was first reported in 2014, but the government refused to acknowledge its existence. After a series of IS attacks in 2015 and 2016 that led to deaths of over a hundred people the army finally admitted that the jihadists have presence in the country and began to crack-down on them.

In September of 2016 the army claimed to have captured the IS leadership in the country, but if that was true then Pakistan would not be shelling Afghanistan to root out their training camps.

Islamic State is not the only one with camps in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) set up large training camps in the country after it was pushed out of Pakistan. Since its creation in 2014 the AQIS has been responsible for killing LGBTQ activists in Bangladesh and trying to hijack a Pakistani navy ship in order to shell a U.S. one.

This was probably the result of Pakistan’s failed anti-terrorist policies. Now Islamabad is shelling Afghanistan to destroy jihadists that were placed there by its own army, which could have repercussions for cooperation between the two countries.

A spokesman for the Afghan government has already said that Kabul will not take much more of this and is ready to defend its borders against Pakistani attacks.

An Afghan/Pakistan war is unlikely given that Kabul is weak and dependent on foreign aid. However, Afghanistan might end its cooperation with Pakistan if Islamabad does not stop destabilizing the country.

Ending cooperation could make it harder for both countries to fight Islamic terrorism, which in turn might allow organizations like the Taliban or IS to expand. Without Pakistani help Islamists could take advantage of the Afghan government’s weakness to expand their safe heavens in the country.

This would allow them to plan and conduct more terrorist attacks in the region.