Pakistan Bombs Kabul: A Fight Between Taliban Brothers

The Pakistani government has sent warplanes to bomb the capital Kabul and three other Afghan cities, apparently to kill the leader of the Pakistani Taliban (a separate group from the Afghan Taliban who rule the country; sometimes they compete, sometimes they get along).

The Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, is an enemy of the Pakistani government, but it once helped the Afghan Taliban overthrow the old government. When it carries out attacks in Pakistan, it flees to hide in Afghanistan.

Pakistan once asked the Afghan Taliban to get rid of these fighters, but the Afghan side preferred to mediate.

Setting aside their sucking up to China, the Afghan Taliban act as an enemy of every country around them, because nobody practises religion in the correct, orthodox way (China, which kills Uyghurs, is a special case; that is simply beyond words). But emotionally they are the least hostile toward Pakistan, because they are the same people, divided by the British.

This incident is probably the Pakistani government pressing the Afghan Taliban to deal with the TTP decisively, but not to the point of going to war. Although Afghanistan is militarily very weak, it is a country that is "easy to strike, hard to rule", because its terrain is forest and mountains, and even when an outside power occupies it, it struggles to beat guerrillas in the long run. Britain, Russia and America have taken turns attacking it. Toppling the government was easy, but they were nibbled away by guerrillas until their resources ran out.

Pakistan probably won't launch a war either.

Afghanistan has a Ministry of Virtue, which protects people from every evil, the internet included. Its development will probably keep falling and it will keep growing weaker, so it surely can't invade Pakistan.

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