PESHAWAR: A top Afghanistan diplomat said Wednesday that the Islamic Emirate or the Taliban administration had already issued a fatwa (decree) that launching attacks in “Pakistan is not jihad”. 

Hafiz Mohibullah Shakir, the acting consul general at the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar, said that the neighbouring country’s defence ministry had also made it clear that attacking Pakistan did not fall under jihad. The Pakistani government has time and again stressed that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists have safe havens in Afghanistan and that the neighbouring nation’s soil was being used for attacks on Pakistan.

Since the Afghan Taliban took over the reins of government in 2021, Pakistan has witnessed a rise in terror incidents with the present year 2023 being the deadliest in eight years. Officials are also saying that Afghan nationals were involved in attacks on security forces. Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s special representative on Afghanistan, said that the banned TTP’s attacks on Pakistan along the borders have increased and that they were “taking shelter on the Afghan soil”.

In response to Pakistan’s repeated insistence on taking action, the interim Afghan rulers arrested 200 suspected militants involved in attacks against Pakistan, the Voice of America reported last month, citing Pakistani officials privy to the development.

Interim Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani and his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, met on the sidelines of a China-hosted international conference earlier this month. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement, said Jilani “underscored that challenges confronting regional peace and stability be addressed in collaborative spirit through collective strategies”.

In his conversation with media men, Shakir said the TTP militants had migrated to Afghanistan during former US-backed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s tenure 2014-2021. He was overthrown by the Taliban. “I want to make it clear: No attacks will be launched from Afghanistan on Pakistan,” the envoy added.