Pakistan should accept that its decades of meddling in Afghanistan have not redounded to its benefit.

Region: Asia, Eurasia

Topic: Land Warfare

While global attention has focused on the escalating US and Israeli strikes against Iran since February 28, a parallel and largely overlooked confrontation has been unfolding between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The deterioration of relations between Islamabad and Kabul raises an important question: What is Pakistan’s long-term strategy toward Taliban-ruled Afghanistan? Afghanistan has endured overlapping political, economic, and humanitarian crises since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and Pakistan’s choices will heavily influence whether the country remains trapped in instability or moves toward a more sustainable political settlement.

When the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15, 2021, Pakistan’s political and military establishment openly welcomed their return. The following day, then-Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that the Taliban had broken the “shackles of slavery,” framing their victory as both a geopolitical and cultural rejection of Western influence. “Breaking the shackles of the mind is more difficult,” he added while speaking at the launch of Pakistan’s “Single National Curriculum.” The remarks reflected a broader ideological narrative portraying Western cultural influence as a form of intellectual domination over Muslim societies.

The rhetoric closely echoed the language the Taliban would later employ to justify banning girls’ education beyond the sixth grade, arguing that Afghanistan’s education system must first be “Islamized” and freed from colonial influence. Symbolism reinforced the message. Days after the Taliban takeover, a widely circulated photograph showed the then–chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Faiz Hameed, drinking coffee in a Kabul hotel. The image appeared to capture the confidence within segments of Pakistan’s security establishment that Islamabad had regained strategic influence in Afghanistan after two decades of Western military presence.

Yet the apparent alignment between Islamabad and the Taliban began to unravel soon after the movement consolidated power. The most serious source of tension emerged over Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the militant organization responsible for numerous attacks inside Pakistan. Initially, the Taliban offered to mediate between Islamabad and the TTP, leading briefly to a ceasefire.

Negotiations quickly collapsed when the TTP demanded the restoration of its authority over the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border. Such a move would effectively reverse the 2018 constitutional merger of FATA into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province under Pakistan’s 25th Constitutional Amendment and undermine the country’s territorial sovereignty. At the same time, the TTP expanded into a broader umbrella organization, incorporating several militant factions and intensifying attacks against Pakistani security forces.

As tensions grew, China attempted to mediate between Islamabad and the Taliban, but mistrust remained deep. During one of the author’s research visits to Pakistan in January 2025, senior officials still insisted that disagreements with the Taliban were “manageable.” Events in the following months would demonstrate otherwise.

The rupture became unmistakable on October 9, 2025, when Pakistan conducted an unprecedented airstrike in Kabul targeting Noor Wali Mehsud, the leader of the TTP. Although Mehsud survived, the strike marked a dramatic escalation in Pakistan’s willingness to project military force inside Afghanistan. Islamabad had previously targeted TTP positions within provinces of Afghanistan, but striking the capital signalled a new phase in the conflict.

The timing was also politically significant: the Taliban’s de facto foreign minister was visiting India—Pakistan’s principal strategic rival—when the strike occurred. Several states, including Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, attempted to mediate between the two sides as accusations escalated. Diplomatic efforts ultimately faltered amid deep mistrust.

A tentative ceasefire collapsed on February 26 when the TTP attacked a Pakistani military outpost in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, inflicting several casualties. By this point, tensions had expanded beyond the question of TTP militancy alone. Islamabad increasingly accused the Taliban administration of tolerating or facilitating attacks by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), while also expressing growing concern about the Taliban’s diplomatic engagement with India.

The decisive rupture came on February 27, 2026, when Pakistan declared what it described as an “open war” against the Taliban regime. Unlike earlier operations that focused primarily on the TTP, Pakistan began targeting both TTP and Taliban positions across multiple provinces of Afghanistan, including Kabul and Kandahar, where the movement’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, resides. This shift suggested that Pakistan may no longer view the Taliban merely as an unreliable partner but increasingly as a potential strategic threat.

Within Pakistani strategic thinking, concerns about India have long shaped its Afghanistan policy. Since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, many Pakistani strategists have believed that India seeks to exploit ethnic nationalism within Pakistan—particularly among the Pashtun and Baloch communities—to weaken the country. These fears intersect with Afghanistan’s historical grievances about the Durand Line, which was imposed in 1893 to demarcate the border between British India and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was famously the only country to oppose Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations in 1947, though it later reversed its position. At the same time, ethnic divisions across the region remain complex and widespread. Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Baloch, and other communities are divided across modern state boundaries, making any attempt to redraw borders along ethnic lines both destabilizing and unrealistic.

Even if direct cooperation between the Taliban and India remains disputed, Pakistani perceptions continue to influence policy. As one Pakistani policymaker told the author during discussions in January 2025, “perception alone can shape strategic reality.”

The central question now is what Pakistan ultimately seeks to achieve in Afghanistan. Is Islamabad attempting to force behavioural change within the Taliban regime, or has it begun to consider supporting a broader political alternative to Taliban rule?

Since October 2025, Pakistan’s rhetoric has visibly hardened. Senior officials, including military spokesman General Chaudhry and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, have adopted a more confrontational tone in public briefings. Yet Pakistan’s strategic end-state remains ambiguous.

One possibility is that Islamabad still hopes to manage the Taliban by exerting pressure on the movement to curb the TTP, moderate aspects of its governance, and limit Indian influence while continuing to accept the Taliban as Afghanistan’s rulers. Such an approach could also involve quietly encouraging rival factions within the Taliban to rebalance power inside the movement.

A second possibility is that Pakistan has concluded the Taliban cannot be reshaped and that Afghanistan requires a broader political settlement led by democratic opposition forces. While Islamabad has not publicly endorsed this option, statements from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs increasingly emphasize the need for a different political order in Afghanistan.

On October 12, 2025, a Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson stated that “Pakistan is desirous of a peaceful, stable, friendly, inclusive, regionally connected, and prosperous Afghanistan,” expressing hope for the emergence of “a true representative government.” In another briefing, the ministry added: “We also hope that one day, the Afghan people would be emancipated and a true representative government would govern them.”

For decades, Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy has centred on securing a “friendly” government in Kabul—often through proxy actors such as the Taliban or, earlier, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The logic behind this approach was to obtain “strategic depth” against India. In practice, however, it has repeatedly destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan while undermining the prospects for economic integration across South, Central, and West Asia.

If Pakistan is now serious about supporting a representative and inclusive Afghanistan, the question is no longer whether an alternative exists but whether Pakistan’s security establishment, political leadership, and media are prepared to engage with such an alternative—and accept the strategic consequences of abandoning decades of proxy-based influence.

Pakistan could also help initiate a broader regional dialogue for peace, working alongside Afghanistan’s neighbours and key regional powers. Such a process could complement an Afghan national dialogue aimed at achieving a post-Taliban political settlement and include countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Central Asian states, and India to ensure that Afghanistan no longer serves as an arena for geopolitical competition.

Stability in Afghanistan could unlock connectivity between South, Central, and West Asia, facilitating trade, energy corridors, and economic integration that would benefit the entire region. Ultimately, such a process would also reinforce the United Nations-led efforts under UNAMA to build international consensus around Afghanistan’s future. For Pakistan, the strategic question remains stark: will it continue attempting to manage the Taliban, or will it embrace a broader political transformation in Afghanistan?

About the Authors: Zalmai Nishat and Chris Blackburn

Zalmai Nishat is the founder and executive chair of Mosaic Global Foundation, a UK-registered charity focused on Afghanistan and Central Asia. Previously, he was the program lead for Central and South Asia at the Tony Blair Institute. He is a graduate of SOAS University of London. Follow him on X: @ZalNishat.

Chris Blackburn is a strategist in international relations and economic development. Chris serves as a strategic advisor to Mosaic Foundation. He is also the director of communications for the Europe-Bangladesh Forum. Follow him on X: @CJBdingo25. 

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