Taliban’s Blame Game has Failed

Basir Mazhari, the Taliban regime’s police chief for Badakhshan, has once again pointed fingers across the Durand Line. He claims Pakistan is running training centres for armed opponents of the Taliban regime along the border.

The timing is telling. This accusation surfaces just as the Taliban regime faces growing resistance, internal fractures and mounting security failures across Badakhshan itself.

There is a certain irony here that deserves attention. The same regime making these claims is widely known to harbour the TTP, Al-Qaeda and other anti-Pakistan terror proxies. These groups operate from Afghan soil and routinely launch attacks into Pakistan.

If Kabul is genuinely concerned about armed opponents crossing borders, it might start by explaining why its own territory has become a launchpad for cross-border terrorism. That conversation never seems to happen.

Instead, Pakistan has become the Taliban regime’s default scapegoat. Whenever internal disorder becomes too visible to hide, Kabul reaches for the same tired script and points east.

This is not a new pattern. Every time the internal insurgency, including the ISIS-K threat, exposes the regime’s inability to govern, old conspiracy stories about Pakistan get dusted off and repeated.

It is a convenient distraction. It shifts attention away from a security establishment that cannot secure its own territory, and redirects public anger toward an imagined external enemy.

Consider the actual record here. The Taliban regime cannot control its own borders. It cannot dismantle the terrorist sanctuaries operating within its territory. It cannot contain the rival armed factions challenging its authority.

Yet somehow, the world is expected to believe that Pakistan bears responsibility for problems Kabul cannot manage inside its own country. That is a difficult case to make with a straight face.

Claims about Pakistani training camps keep surfacing without any credible evidence attached. They tend to appear precisely when the regime is under internal pressure, facing resistance, or dealing with visible fractures within its own ranks.

That pattern alone should raise questions about the motive behind these accusations. Serious intelligence claims do not typically follow the rhythm of a regime’s domestic political needs.

The broader picture matters too. Pakistan is managing a 2,600 kilometre border, one of the most difficult in the region, alongside its own enormous burden of terrorism. Much of that terrorism originates from groups sheltering across that same border.

Expecting Pakistan to answer for armed groups that Kabul itself has failed to control gets the accountability backwards. The regime that hosts these groups bears primary responsibility for their actions, not the neighbour absorbing the fallout.

There is something else worth noting about accusations like this. A regime that cannot control its own territory increasingly needs external enemies to explain away its internal failures. That need for a villain says more about the accuser than the accused.

Basir Mazhari’s claims carry limited credibility on their own merits. This is a regime that has failed to secure Afghanistan, while the TTP, Al-Qaeda and other groups continue to find safe operating space under conditions many describe as patronage rather than mere tolerance.

What Kabul offers instead of accountability is propaganda dressed up as intelligence. Claims about Pakistani camps arrive on cue, while the regime remains unable to explain terrorist sanctuaries, ISIS-K violence, internal fractures or the growing resistance movements challenging its rule.

None of this amounts to serious analysis. It is a diversion, and a fairly transparent one at that.

The Taliban regime would serve itself better by retiring the ghost camp narrative altogether. Its actual problem is straightforward and well documented. Afghan soil is being used by terrorist groups, the regime has shown no capacity to control them, and it now finds itself desperate to blame Pakistan for the consequences of its own policies.

Manufacturing an external threat does not make an internal one disappear. Until the Taliban regime addresses the terrorist infrastructure operating from its own territory, accusations aimed at Pakistan will remain exactly what they appear to be: a distraction from a security crisis of its own making.

SAT Commentary

SAT Commentaries, a collection of insightful social media threads on current events and social issues, featuring diverse perspectives from various authors.