Since the creation of a Pakistani State after the dissolution of the British Empire, the relationships between Pakistan, India and Afghanistan have been volatile
TIMOTHY FOXLY (MBE)
Emboldened by their August 2021 return to power, the Afghan Taliban’s relationship with the Pakistani government has been redefined. Pakistan expected cooperation, but a major cause of friction has been the increasing use of Afghan territory by the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP – the Pakistani Taliban). The TTP, resolved to bring down the Pakistani government, have ramped up attacks against government and military targets, helped by safe havens in Afghanistan.
Amidst rising tension, border clashes and low-level friction, has given way to Pakistani air strikes into Afghan population centres, including a major mass casualty event in Kabul in March 2026, attributed to a Pakistan air strike. Neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan can afford the economic and political turbulence, but a sustainable solution to the conflict looks distant.
On 16 March 2026, a missile landed on a former American military base in eastern Kabul (formerly “Camp Phoenix”). The buildings had been re-purposed by the Taliban regime as a rehabilitation centre for Afghan drug addicts. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that a Pakistani military aircraft was responsible. The explosion is believed to have caused hundreds of casualties, dead and wounded. Pakistan claimed it was a precision strike against TTP military facilities.
After several years of tension, friction, border skirmishes and escalating violence, a major conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan broke out in February 2026. Pakistani Defence Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, described it as a state of “open war”. Though this might be premature, the conflict has included air, rocket and artillery strikes conducted by the Pakistani military.
Pakistan had long wished for a Taliban government in Afghanistan and had navigated a difficult and dangerous political path over the preceding twenty years to achieve that goal: pretending to assist the US-led military coalition and the democratically elected fledgling Afghan Republic while covertly working to support the Taliban, many of whom were benefiting from a safe haven in the western border areas of Pakistan, adjacent to neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan’s support for the Taliban during this time is routinely described as a “Double Game”.
Shortly after the Taliban took power in August 2021, the chief of Pakistan’s intelligence agency – Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) – Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed was quick to visit the Taliban leadership and present his congratulations. Even then, there were concerns that the new phase of the relationship, with the newly installed Taliban regime now no longer so dependent upon Pakistani largesse, might not go as well as Pakistan might hope;
“Pakistan has certain influence on Taliban but they (Taliban) have many complaints from us”, Rustam Shah Mohmand, Afghan affairs expert who had served as Pakistan’s envoy to Kabul, told Arab News. “Too much interference in their government formation could backfire”.
This article is not intended to be a history lesson of the longer relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it is important to sketch in a few key – and recurring – themes. Since the creation of a Pakistani State after the dissolution of the British Empire, the relationships between Pakistan, India and Afghanistan have been volatile.
Pakistan’s engagement with Afghanistan should generally be seen in the context of Pakistan’s confrontations with India and Pakistan’s fear that Afghanistan might become a client State of India, thereby strategically surrounding Pakistan. Since the mid-nineties, Pakistan has invested much time and money seeking to ensure that the Taliban become a client of Pakistan and dominate Afghanistan in a manner favourable to Pakistan.
Pakistani military intelligence played an important – even decisive – role in bringing about the rise of the Taliban by providing training, weapons, logistical support and a safe haven in western Pakistan from where they could retrain, regroup and recruit.
The boundary between eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan – the ‘Durand Line’ was a British imperial construct, designed to protect British-controlled India against Russian advances across Central Asia. It sliced through a complex, millennia-long network of Pashtun tribes for whom the Durand Line meant nothing.
While technically the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is not respected by Pashtuns, who continue to use ancient paths and smuggling routes. It is relatively straightforward for those wishing to avoid government attention, which in the late-20th and early 21st centuries increasingly included criminal gangs, drug traffickers and terrorists, to slip over the mountains and through the lesser-known forests and valleys in both directions.
The decades of conflict in Afghanistan – the Soviet occupation of 1979-1989, the civil war in the 1990s, the rise of the Taliban in the late nineties and the international military intervention from late 2001 that led to twenty years of Taliban guerrilla warfare – exacerbated the economic and security problems of this border region.
Starting in the early 1980s, millions of Afghan refugees took up semi-permanent and permanent residence in refugee camps and cities in western Pakistan, offering fruitful recruiting grounds for other terrorist groups, including Pakistani-backed terrorist groups focused on India, including Jammu & Kashmir.
From 2007, a Pakistani “Taliban” began to emerge (Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan – TTP), declaring allegiance to the Afghan Taliban’s Supreme Leader. In 2011, the United Nations declared that the TTP was associated with Al Qaeda. The group has continued to launch attacks across Pakistan, including suicide bombings.
The TTP have been inspired by the Afghan Taliban’s military success in Afghanistan and have similar goals for Pakistan – the violent removal of the government and the establishment of their own vision of an Islamic State.
When the Taliban took power, it became convenient – even logical – for the TTP to use Afghanistan as a base for its operations in Pakistan. The Taliban deny that they are allowing the TTP to operate from Afghanistan.
Here are the two painful ironies for Pakistan; Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban which, in turn supported the Pakistani Taliban who are attacking Pakistan. Furthermore, Pakistan enabled the 2001 – 2021 Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan by allowing them a safe haven (and other forms of support) in western Pakistan. Now the TTP may be receiving safe haven in Afghanistan in order to conduct operations into Pakistan.
So, the post-August 2021 Pakistan-Afghanistan ‘honeymoon period’ wore off.
Pakistan’s concern about a TTP presence in Afghanistan and increasing TTP attacks in Pakistan began to grow. Diplomatic protests began to give way to threats of military action. There were some early disputes and skirmishes about the locations of border posts and the activities of the military personnel of both sides.
In December 2021, Pakistan complained that the Taliban had prevented its soldiers from setting up a security fence opposite Nangarhar province. In February 2022, Pakistan claimed that five of its soldiers had been killed by ‘militants’ in a cross-border firefight. In 2023, skirmishes occurred several times at border crossing points.
In March and September 2024, the Pakistani Air Force launched strikes at targets in the south-eastern Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost. A regular feature of the Afghan-Pakistan conflict is the lack of clarity over casualties: Pakistan claimed to have struck militants, while the Taliban claimed dozens of women and children had been killed. Many of the claims and military actions have been fuelled by the dialogue of revenge and the need to demonstrate robust actions in response to previous attacks.
The situation deteriorated further in 2025, with the TTP increasing its attacks in Pakistan. On 9 October, a TTP attack killed eleven Pakistani troops – including a Lieutenant Colonel – near the Afghan border.
Later that day, explosions were heard in Kabul. Although many judged that this was a Pakistani airstrike, the cause was very unclear. The Economist reported that air strikes in Kabul may have taken place on two separate days in mid-October.
But, even if the reports were unconfirmed, it raised serious concerns that the Pakistani military was probably open to targeting Kabul – and thereby significantly escalating the tensions – in retaliation for TTP actions in Pakistan. Concerns that were, only months later, to be realised.
The security situation took an even more worrying nose-dive in early 2026. On 26 February, Pakistan launched more extensive military operations in Afghanistan, declaring Operation Righteous Fury as a statement of ‘Open War’ against the Taliban. Air strikes hit Kabul and Kandahar. Afghan border positions and military facilities were hit. The Taliban, for their part, attacked Pakistani border outposts, possibly including the use of drone strikes.
The United Nations said 370 Afghans had been killed in the first three months of 2026. On 16 March 2026, an airstrike hit eastern Kabul, causing a major mass casualty event in which a Pakistani missile hit the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Hospital, a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts.
In the bleak and very violent story of Afghanistan’s last forty years, it is even possible that the attack on the rehab centre may turn out be the deadliest attack in recent history. A United Nations report gives a figure of 269 believed dead, although the figure may be higher (the Taliban say 411 killed). Patient documents were destroyed in the attack, many individuals are still missing, some casualties were unidentifiable, and other casualties may have been taken home or to the hospital by friends and family without their information being recorded.
It is difficult to see a significant improvement in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations in the short to medium term. Both sides favour tough rhetoric that denies, denounces and deflects. Attacks frequently generate more revenge attacks. However, the tensions between the two countries are not purely about the TTP.
The location and recognition of the border formerly known as the Durand Line remains in dispute. Patrolling and maintaining border posts in a geographically challenging area where the border is not agreed will continue to generate friction and clashes.
The abrupt, aggressive forced deportation of millions of Afghans from Pakistan back to Afghanistan is also a major cause of dispute and regularly threatens to overwhelm the Taliban’s, themselves dependent upon aid agencies, ability to absorb large numbers. Deportations have increased the Afghan population by around ten percent over the last three years, at a time when humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan are extremely poor.
Peace talks brokered by China and others may bring a lessening in the violence, and neither side benefits from the major economic disruption caused by the closure of key trade routes. The Taliban will continue to deny that they are supporting the TTP by allowing them to operate from Afghanistan, and Pakistan will continue to point to militant groups attacking into Pakistan.
Recent reporting suggests the TTP have been told to leave Kabul, presumably more to make their presence less overt rather than a wider move to clear out the TTP. The Pakistan government almost certainly privately recognise that they were responsible for the strike on the rehab centre. This might make them more wary of future use of airpower near large population centres.
It is perhaps premature to describe the violence as an “all-out war”, but skirmishes in the border areas – provinces such as Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktiya and Khost) – likely including artillery, rockets and airstrikes – will very likely continue, and civilian casualties are unfortunately certain.
(The Author is a Research Fellow at the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at [email protected]. He has previously been affiliated with the UK Ministry of Defence and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
