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What was once framed as strategic depth has devolved into strategic deadlock, leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan unable to stabilise their relationship
On November 11, a suicide bomber killed 12 people and injured several others outside a judicial complex in Islamabad. This followed an attack at the Wana cadet college the day before, in South Waziristan. For the already fraught Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship, these fresh attacks have added impetus on both sides to raise their rhetoric further. Pakistan’s interior minister claimed Afghan nationals were involved in both attacks and blamed the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan for aiding and abetting them. As goes the usual pattern, Pakistan’s Prime Minister blamed India for orchestrating this attack in tandem with the Afghan Taliban, while the defence minister raised the spectre of a full-blown conflict and warned that fresh attacks on terror sanctuaries in Afghanistan could no longer be ruled out. These tensions follow the strikes and counterstrikes between the two sides in October and the charting of a fragile ceasefire, even as the final round of Qatar and Türkiye-mediated talks failed to reach a long-term, sustainable solution.
On October 9, Pakistan launched airstrikes at Kabul, in an apparent bid to target Noor Wali Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who was travelling in an armoured vehicle. While the TTP leader survived, Afghanistan accused Pakistan of violating its airspace and attacking a civilian market near the border. According to the Islamic Emirate’s spokesperson, the attack marked an ‘unprecedented’ blow to the relationship, and he held the Pakistani establishment responsible. While Pakistan did not claim direct responsibility for the attack, the days that followed saw the Taliban attack Pakistani military posts, capture vehicles, and intensify the fighting, resulting in high casualties. A ceasefire was subsequently finalised after pressure from Qatar, Türkiye, and Saudi Arabia. The timing of Pakistan’s strikes on October 9 was also significant, coinciding with Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi's meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on his maiden visit to India. Other countries in the region, such as Iran and China, also called on the two sides to exercise restraint and offered their support in mediating between them, while US President Donald Trump offered his offices to help bring an end to the fighting.
The current situation is thus a manifestation of Pakistan’s own policy of harbouring terrorists to further its own strategic interests — the classic ‘good Taliban, bad Taliban’ dichotomy. No number of strikes and clashes with Afghanistan can bring an end to militancy or improve the security situation unless there is a complete overhaul in how the country functions — a prospect that seems bleak at best.
Three rounds of talks were held in Doha and Istanbul to resolve the long-standing issues between the two countries. The latest round of talks in Istanbul, which concluded on November 8, reached a stalemate. During the talks, Pakistan called for the relocation of all militant groups to Afghanistan, the issuance of a fatwa declaring war against Pakistan as forbidden, and a commitment to not allow any security incidents in Pakistan. Other reports suggested that Islamabad also called for third-party verifications of Kabul’s actions. After the failure of the talks, Pakistan blamed the Taliban regime for not addressing the core issue: that Afghan soil should not be used to wage terrorist attacks against Pakistan, raising doubts about the Islamic Emirate’s willingness to act. It reiterated the increase in attacks in Pakistan, despite Islamabad’s apparent efforts to “constructively engage with Afghanistan.” It rejected the Taliban’s narrative that the attacks were Pakistan’s internal security problem, claiming that many groups responsible for the attacks have Afghan members.
The Islamic Emirate, on the other hand, blamed Pakistan for failing to provide any security guarantees for either itself or Afghanistan, and cited Pakistan’s obstinate demands as the reason for the breakdown of the talks. Amir Khan Muttaqi also demanded that Islamabad act against the training centres set up by the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP) and other groups in Pakistan. The Taliban has insisted that other global powers should not use Pakistan’s airspace to launch operations against Afghanistan. Calls by the United States to take over the Bagram Air Base, along with previous over-the-horizon operations carried out by the US in 2022, have added to the Taliban’s concerns as the regime has based its legitimacy on freeing Afghanistan from the clutches of foreign occupation.
Back in 2021, the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan was seen as a win in Pakistan — a reward for the state’s long-term support to the group’s insurgency and a successful culmination of efforts to gain strategic depth within Afghanistan. A few weeks into the Taliban’s regime, these expectations came undone. The TTP, emboldened by the Taliban’s return, escalated its attacks on Pakistan — particularly its security establishment — with the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan at the centre of most of these attacks. The first three quarters of 2025 saw 2,400 deaths, much higher than the 2,500 recorded in the whole of 2024. While Pakistan has consistently asked the Afghan Taliban to rein in the group, the Taliban has denied that it has any sway or control over the actions of the TTP. In 2022, its attempts to mediate talks between the TTP and Pakistan came to naught. Since then, the Taliban has maintained that attacks in Pakistan are an internal security matter for Islamabad, and that Kabul has no role to play in either abetting or stopping them. These differences have also trickled into other aspects of the relationship.
On the other hand, even after four years in power, and despite being in a much stronger position today, there remains little clarity about how much authority the Taliban actually have over the TTP and its operations within Afghanistan.
Starting September 2023, Pakistan began to deport Afghan refugees from the country, with about 5,89,000 having returned to Afghanistan till October 2025. The frequent border skirmishes between the two sides have also led to the closure of the border being used as a tactical tool. On November 13, the emirate’s economic affairs minister announced Kabul’s decision to de-risk from Pakistan by urging traders to seek alternative routes and asking the Finance Ministry to halt customs clearance for medicines imported from Pakistan after three months. He also urged Pakistan to provide written guarantees that any future hostilities would not lead to a closure of the border. Information warfare targeting Pakistan and originating in Afghanistan has also intensified in recent months. Some reports suggest that the growing hostility with Pakistan has enabled different factions in Afghanistan to unite against a common adversary, in effect bridging internal divisions within the Afghan Taliban.
While criticising the Afghan Taliban for supporting the TTP and other groups inimical to Pakistan’s interests, Islamabad has highlighted the long-standing allegiance these groups have toward the Taliban regime because of the support they received during the fight against US-led forces and the erstwhile republic government. What Pakistan fails (or deliberately ignores) to note is that its disappointment at not having secured the strategic depth it so fiercely sought in Afghanistan also stems from the very allegiance it expected the Taliban to extend to it in return for Pakistan’s support during the insurgency years. The current situation is thus a manifestation of Pakistan’s own policy of harbouring terrorists to further its own strategic interests — the classic ‘good Taliban, bad Taliban’ dichotomy. No number of strikes and clashes with Afghanistan can bring an end to militancy or improve the security situation unless there is a complete overhaul in how the country functions — a prospect that seems bleak at best.
On the other hand, even after four years in power, and despite being in a much stronger position today, there remains little clarity about how much authority the Taliban actually have over the TTP and its operations within Afghanistan. While the TTP shares ideological similarities with the Afghan Taliban and supported them during their insurgency, the Taliban have refrained from openly promoting the group’s activities in Pakistan. Senior Taliban leaders have urged Afghans not to unleash a jihad against Pakistan, as asked by the Taliban’s emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada. Even the TTP leader, Noor Wali Mehsud, has asked Afghans to stop providing manpower support and instead follow the directives of their government. However, the repeated need for such statements, most recently in June 2025, suggests that the Taliban’s control over who joins the TTP and how they act might be limited. This has implications beyond the Afghanistan-Pakistan dynamic, given reports of the proliferation of other terror groups in Afghanistan, particularly Al Qaeda, as well as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
The Taliban’s recent realignment vis-à-vis their improved ties with India and a tacit pivot away from dependence on Pakistan will influence how the relationship fares in the near future.
The new low in ties between the two countries — an amalgamation of four years of constant brickbatting — raises the risk of further regional destabilisation. But even as these differences have metastasised, the deeply entrenched relationship cannot simply be wished away. Both sides have attempted to argue that only certain sections within their respective establisments are bent on destabilising ties: the Taliban blame the Pakistani military, with Muttaqi urging Pakistan’s civilian government to find a solution to the crisis, while Pakistan attributes the tensions to internal divisions within the Taliban and the vested interests of certain factions. Within Pakistan, opposition parties such as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have sought to leverage the situation and have explored ways to directly engage with the Taliban. However, the passage of the 27th Constitutional Amendment and the solidification of the military’s rule in Pakistan diminish the prospects of the crisis resolving itself anytime soon. The latest strikes on Afghanistan’s Paktika, Khost, and Kunar provinces on November 25th and the Taliban’s statement hinting at seeking revenge for the casualties inflicted by the Pakistani military reflect the dwindling prospects of stability in the region. The Taliban’s recent realignment vis-à-vis their improved ties with India and a tacit pivot away from dependence on Pakistan will influence how the relationship fares in the near future.
Shivam Shekhawat is a Junior Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Shivam Shekhawat is a Junior Fellow with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme. Her research focuses primarily on India’s neighbourhood- particularly tracking the security, political and economic ...
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