When the Taliban seized power in Kabul in August 2021, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed gave a triumphant press conference at the Torkham crossing with Afghanistan.
He claimed that the Taliban’s rapid rise to power would create a “new bloc” and that the region would gain great global importance. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, likened the Taliban’s return to power to Afghans “breaking the shackles of slavery.”
For nearly twenty years, the Afghan Taliban fought a sophisticated and sustained revolution, and at one point confronted a US-led coalition of more than forty countries in Afghanistan. During that period, Taliban leaders and fighters found refuge inside Pakistan through areas bordering Afghanistan. Taliban leaders also formed a presence and links with major cities in Pakistan such as Quetta, Peshawar and later Karachi.
Many Taliban leaders and many fighters are graduates of Pakistani Islamic religious schools, including Darul Uloom Haqqania, where Mullah Muhammad Omar, the founder of the Taliban, is said to have studied. In Pakistan, the Taliban found an ecosystem that fostered organic relationships between different sectors of Pakistani society, which enabled the group to reorganize and begin a deadly uprising that began around 2003. Without Pakistan’s support and sanctuary, the success of the Taliban uprising would have been highly unlikely. .
Against this backdrop, what explains the recent deterioration in bilateral relations, with Pakistani armed forces launching air strikes inside Afghanistan this week – just the latest evidence of tensions between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban?
Historical and current factors
Afghanistan has a complex history with Pakistan. While Pakistan welcomed the Taliban to Kabul as a natural ally, the Taliban government has proven less cooperative than Pakistan had hoped, siding with nationalist rhetoric to garner support from broader Afghan society. Taliban leaders are also keen to transition from a militant group to a government, an ostensibly ongoing endeavor, and to establish relationships that go beyond heavy dependence on Pakistan.
The Durand Line, a colonial-era border line dividing regions and communities between Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan, was not officially recognized by any Afghan state after the founding of Pakistan in 1947. The Durand Line is internationally recognized as the border between the two countries. Pakistan has almost completely fenced it off. However, in Afghanistan, the Durand Line has become an emotive issue because it divides Pashtuns on both sides of the border.
The Taliban government in the 1990s did not support the Durand Line, and the current Taliban regime follows its predecessors. In Pakistan, this is seen as a nuisance and a challenge to Pakistan’s doctrine of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.
With the success of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the arena of armed insurgency appears to have shifted to Pakistan. There has been a significant rise in armed attacks on Pakistani security forces and police since 2022 – especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
The Pakistani Taliban, known as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. The Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have maintained symbiotic relationships for years, sharing sanctuary, tactics and resources, often in Waziristan and other Pakistani areas bordering Afghanistan.
Pakistan treated the Afghan Taliban as “friends” after 2001, partly to weaken any sense of Pashtun nationalism across the border, and in the hope of leveraging its influence over the Taliban in developments within Afghanistan and in relations with the United States. In 2011, Michael Mullen, the US military commander at the time, stated that the Haqqani network – a key element of the Afghan Taliban – was a “real arm” of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency. Analysts predicted, as feared, that Pakistan’s support for the Taliban to seize power in Afghanistan would lead to a “Pyrrhic victory” with Pakistani militant groups and other violent non-state actors feeling emboldened, not weakened, as a result.
The importance of tensions and their repercussions
The Taliban are unlikely to accept any Pakistani demands to take action against TTP leaders in the Afghan border areas with Pakistan. It is crucial that such a measure would disrupt the Taliban’s balance with the Pakistani Taliban and open the way for other, more extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Khorasan. Taliban leaders are using the same logic that Pakistan has used for nearly two decades, rejecting demands from the previous Afghan government and the United States to limit Taliban activities within its territory. Just as Pakistan did then, the Taliban now claim that the TTP is an internal Pakistani issue, and that Islamabad must solve its problems internally.
The Pakistani army is likely to continue bombing Afghan territory with impunity, and will face only minor international condemnation. There is an increasing international precedence, unfortunately. Countries such as Israel launch air strikes across the border, claiming there are security threats. Moreover, the Pakistani army, as the long-term guardian of the country’s security, is under enormous pressure to show tangible action in combating militancy and protecting the country’s infrastructure, including the economic projects that China is investing in Balochistan. Attacking Afghan territory allows sending political messages to the Pakistani people to focus on an “enemy” supported from abroad. It also isolates the state from dealing with growing domestic demands for political, social, and economic empowerment, especially by Pakistani Pashtuns.
On the other hand, the Taliban government in Afghanistan lacks the resources, an organized army, and any real international partnerships capable of countering Pakistani aggressiveness. In March 2024, a senior Taliban military commander stated that the United States maintained control over Afghan airspace, explaining the occasional appearance of US drones in Afghan skies.
While Taliban leaders have promised “revenge,” it is unclear how they can do so against a militarily powerful neighbor who also happens to be a long-term strategic supporter of theirs. Pakistan also maintains other levers of influence against the Taliban: most trade to landlocked Afghanistan flows through Pakistan, and Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades.
However, Pakistani military action inside Afghanistan would fuel anti-Pakistani sentiment among the Afghan people and further alienate Pakistani Pashtuns. As the Afghan case shows, insurgencies feed on societal discontent, deprivation and disillusionment among youth.
Solutions require leaders to show boldness in addressing long-standing injustices. A reactionary show of force may make momentary, newsworthy gestures, but achieving peace is usually the art of wisdom and patience. Ironically, Pakistan and Afghanistan offer practical paths to achieving regional economic integration, linking the Central Asian and South Asian regions. Unfortunately, a generation-long lack of political will and vision among leaders, as well as the securitization of bilateral relations, has hampered the prosperity of more than 300 million people in both countries.
