Shepherd of the Afghans — indispensable, yet ineffective

Express Tribune

22-04-2025

The writer is a PhD scholar of Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication at Charles University Prague. She can be reached at [e-mail]
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The US media recently reported that terrorists attacked the Jaffar Express with NATO grade weapons. BBC confirmed that half of around a million weapons left behind in Afghanistan are either being sold to global terrorists or smuggled out of Afghanistan by the Afghan Taliban. The report did not mention where a large number of weapons had been smuggled, but intelligence reports from Pakistan suggest they are already in Pakistan and being used by terrorists against the state of Pakistan.
It's been since August 15, 2021 that I have been expressing apprehensions in these columns that the US-abandoned weapons would be used against Pakistan. From 2022 onwards, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the UN organisations dealing with Afghan affairs had been drawing attention to the fact that Afghan Taliban were hosting, funding and weaposnising global terrorists such as Al-Qaeda and TTP.
But during the same time the US had been providing funds through different means to the Afghan Taliban and never reprimanded them on what they were doing to global peace.
No doubt President Trump wants every piece of the weapon back to the US, but The Washington Post and BBC reports are quite right that it's impossible to collect the weapons and send them back to the US. The damage has already been done. There is only one silver lining which is the Islamabad's resolve to adopt damage control policies.
Pakistan is taking a range of actions such as ensuring better border control, sending illegal Afghans back to their country, and accepting the reality that Pakistan cannot be the 'shepherd of the people'. It is hoped that the policies focusing on preventing further harm, stabilising the situation and minimising the extent of the damage would continue, and Pakistan would not fall the victim to "need-based" arrangements yet again.
One positive step Pakistan has already taken is an open and honest communication of the state with stakeholders, including the public, politicians, academia and youth, to maintain trust and manage perceptions.
Pakistan is not shy of sharing with stakeholders that Afghans living in Pakistan are a constant threat to Pakistan's peace and sovereignty. Now it is time to address the root causes of cross-border terrorism from the western side, and that is what the state is trying to figure out through a contingency plan aimed at minimising the impact of any future incidents.
Over the last 50 years, Pakistan has been shepherding the people of Afghanistan, providing them security, food supply, housing, education, healthcare, jobs, trade and an economic lifeline. But while Pakistan - like the shepherd in Odyssey — is indispensable, it is also ineffective as regards controlling the Afghans and preventing them from ruining its tranquility, peace and economic growth.
And one should not forget that Pakistan is just a shepherd, and not the owner of this big flock — if described in Greek poetic terms. Pakistan was assigned to 'look after' Afghans by the powers that were cheese-boarding Afghan Jihad to defeat the then Soviet Union.
Neither the Afghans nor the Pakistanis decided the role that Islamabad played for more than four decades. Therefore, the 'Ansar-Muhajireen bond' turned out to be a hollow slogan once the Afghans gained power from the USSR. Since then, we have been at war — a Trojan war.
There is no need to go into the details of what the Pakistani nation and society lost over the last 50 years for becoming the 'shepherd of the people'. The task Pakistan fulfilled is well explained in the following lines from Homer's Iliad: "He should not sleep all night long who is a man burdened with counsels and responsibility for the people and cares so numerous."
For the last 30 years, the shepherd was here, but without people. Today's reality is that neither the shepherd nor the people are here. I believe this is the beginning of a new era of the Pak-Afghan relationship that would benefit Pakistan in the long run.