More deadly war might be starting any time now: Pakistani author warns as Taliban overruns Afghanistan

Mohammed Hanif wrote in his opinion piece published in The Guardian: " More than four decades ago, our leaders insisted we had to help the Afghan mujahideen fight the Soviets because that would help us ward off communism in our own country. Having lived most of my life in Pakistan, I have probably come across half a dozen communists – and even they never agreed with each other."

"That first jihad made generations of Afghans homeless but it also made some people in Pakistan very rich," the author wrote.

"But when the victorious mujahideen finally took power in Kabul, a few years after the Soviets left, they turned out to be the wrong sort for Pakistan. After all the years we spent training and hosting them, they still didn’t really like us much. So another war had to be started to get rid of our mujahideen," he wrote narrating episodes from the past.

He said  Taliban fighters taught in Pakistani madrasas and sometimes even marched to Kabul and took care of those bad mujahideen.

"Now many Pakistanis are gloating, while others are warning about the future. We are doing a victory dance, but there is dread in our hearts. We do talk about stuff like women and children and free media and the international consensus, but we are hoping that the Taliban will remember the good times we had together. We hope they will not remember their suffering too much," he wrote.

Hanif further said: "We hope they’ll remember our suffering too. Last time we betrayed the Taliban, their Pakistani cousins brought the Taliban-style fight to our streets, mosques and schools. For many years, we told ourselves that there were good Taliban (mainly in Afghanistan) and bad Taliban (mainly in Pakistan). While trying to uphold that distinction, more than 70,000 Pakistanis were killed – including 132 in an army-run school, murdered in a few hours. The American military lost more than 2,300 lives in 20 years."

"We already have a third generation of Afghans growing up in refugee camps, and now a new generation of Taliban taking over Kabul. We have always hoped that the Afghan Taliban will somehow rein in the Pakistani Taliban and turn them into civil society workers. For now, they have set them free from Afghan jails," he said.

Taliban took control over Afghanistan in a rapid speed immediately after foreign forces started leaving the country.

Internationally recognized Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani escaped the nation on Aug 15 as the Taliban entered Kabul.