PTM & Anti-State Nexus: Hidden Ties, Exposed Agendas

PTM and the Anti-State Nexus: A Tale of Covert Ties and Exposed Agendas

Whether Khalid Zadran is a turncoat is another story, but in his memoir, The 15 Minutes, he tells us how the unholy alliance between PTM and Afghan Taliban can be so hidden.

Over years the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) positioned itself as a nonviolent civil rights campaign to secure the rights of the Pashtuns in Pakistan. Praising their slogans of justice and equality, PTM managed to attract the masses in society who had faith in their anti-establishment and supposedly pro-democratic propaganda. This mask has however been shattered off with recent revelations identifying a long running nexus between PTM and the anti-state elements across the border.

Khalid Zadran the formal spokesperson of the police force in Kabul under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan has given a political bombshell in his memoir The 15 Minutes. His book gives the account of a public declaration regarding Taliban strategic affiliation with PTM and their leader Manzoor Pashteen. The information presented in the memoir can be taken as a turning point on how the PTM is now to be perceived as not a nationalist voice representing the Pashtun people but an off arm of the destabilization being done by foreign powers against Pakistan.

The elucidating moment: The voice of Taliban speaks itself.

Those who were skeptical that the PTM is the elongated wing of the Taliban must take a round to think again.

These utterances of Khalid Zadran lead to the bones of the narrative promoted by PTM. In The 15 Minutes, Zadran openly reveals how the Taliban had a direct contact with the PTM leaders and regarded them as a strategic asset. Worse, he discloses that the leaders of PTM such as Manzoor Pashteen shared the same ideology with the Taliban and had fought against NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Such bare declaration by an insider of the Taliban takes all the grey areas out of the intentions of the PTM. It validates any previous doubts of Pakistani intelligence and even the civil society that the apparent internal complaints that PTM had been complaining about were externally influenced.

An agenda for the Greater Afghanistan and PTM

According to the book authored by Zadran, the Taliban had helped Manzoor Pashteen to defend the idea about the solution of a greater Afghanistan, an irredentist daydream, which concerns a section of the land in Pakistan. Such ideological correspondence is not a simple political attitude; it is the direct threat of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan.

As Zadran put it:Our dream was on track with the vision of Manzoor. We thought he was one of us. Our protest was his protest.”

This assertion makes the protests and demands of PTM a prominent part of a foreign aggression plan. What hitherto was considered as a dissention is now revealed to be a ploy to overthrow Pakistan internally.

Two Faces, A Single Agenda: PTM-Taliban Brotherhood

The myth of the existence of PTM and the Taliban as two different movements consisting of different agendas has finally been disproved. The memoir by Zadran fills the gap that many had muted or even denied. The best truth is conveyed by him:

PTM and Taliban are like two sides of the same coin!

This relationship is not only ideological but operating. Intelligence sharing, strategic communication and even joint propaganda were among the props. The Taliban takeover gave PTM a cloak of respectability to cover clandestine plans to topple the Pakistani state on all its three fronts: military, ideological, and social.

A Protest No More PTM Stands Revealed

Once the claim and acknowledgment by the Taliban themselves to the fact that they had always supported Manzoor, the only response the PTM can make is that all the dealings they had to appear peaceful activists has been swept away. They cannot be considered a non-violent movement or a domestic one since they have associations with militants whose war was directed also to the NATO and other civilians in Afghanistan.

This story that PTM is championing the interests of the marginal factors in the Pashtun community is crippled by the fact that they turn against the national/state interest and side with those opposed to the state. It is an opportune moment to reckon with the average Pakistani citizen especially in the Pashtun belt. The real mask of PTM is disclosed: not the guardians of the rights, but servitors of the alien game.

The Consequences of the National Security in Pakistan

The revelations could not have come at a worse time when Pakistan is suffering enough already with cross-border militancy, struggling economy, and polarized political environment. The revelation of PTM as a Taliban affiliated outfit should necessitate swift action by state apparatus.

Notably, This is not a threat with some ideological dimensions but a crisis of national security. It was based on the PTM platform that they created civil unrest, sapped out the faith in the state institutions, and anti-army feelings. Since the causes of this agitation are identified now, the strategic reactions would have to comprise:

The emphasis on counter-narratives in the regions where the problem occurred is renewed

Foreign-backed political groups scrutinized by the judicial and legislative body

Known collaborator crackdowns with intelligence It has been a combined approach, and it has been a police strategy.

Zadran does not only mention his memoir as a piece of history, but as a warning. This is a critical time in history in which Pakistan is reinstalling its own narrative and saving their sovereignty. The exposure to PTM should trigger a wider sense and solidarity against any foreign sponsored plots to tear the nation apart.

The mirage of PTM as a non-elite rights activism is stopped. All that is left is the startling truth of hidden anti state network – at last revealed.

The 15 Minutes that broke the PTM saga could easily help Pakistan avoid a few years of self-deceit.