Will Taliban hand over Bagram airbase for CT ops to China or US?

With a number of international terrorist groups now operating from Afghanistan rising, the Taliban cabinet is convening on Friday to examine if Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, could be handed over to a third country for helping the Sunni Pashtun Islamists to launch counter-terror operations in the country. The two countries in reckoning are Pakistan backed China and the US, which left the airbase on July 5, 2021, after two decades of operations.

The jostling of power within the Taliban government with defence minister Mullah Yaqoob on one side and Pakistan ISI backed interior minister and global terrorist Sirajuddin Haqqani on the other side has led to total chaos in governance as a consequence of which terrorist groups have homed in Afghanistan as a base for operations. It is precisely because of this unfolding scenario that Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa differed with outgoing ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed as the former felt that there would be a huge Islamic fall-out on Pakistan. While both Pakistan PM Imran Khan and DG ISI gloated over the Taliban occupation of Kabul, army chief Bajwa differed from them as the fear was that Pakistan would turn into a rabid Islamic state like Afghanistan under the Taliban.