Al Jazeera :
When the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed delivered a triumphant news conference at the Torkham crossing with Afghanistan.
He claimed that the Taliban’s swift ascendance to power would create “a new bloc” and the region would reach great global importance. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, equated the Taliban’s return to power with Afghans having “broken the shackles of slavery”.
For nearly 20 years, the Afghan Taliban fought a sophisticated and sustained revolt, confronted – at one point – by a United States-led coalition of more than 40 countries in Afghanistan. In that period, Taliban leaders and fighters found sanctuary inside Pakistan across the regions bordering Afghanistan. Taliban leaders also formed a presence in, and links with, major cities in Pakistan such as Quetta, Peshawar and later, Karachi.
