Pakistan and Afghanistan are locked in their worst conflict since the 2021 Taliban takeover with deadly border clashes over the weekend leaving dozens of soldiers dead.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terror group that has unleashed fury on the Pakistani forces over the last two years, launched a series of coordinated attacks across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pakistan’s border areas in retaliation to recent Pakistani airstrikes targeting its hideouts inside Afghanistan.
Michael Kugelman, Director of the Washington DC-based South Asia Institute at the Wilson Centre, said on X that the border crisis between the neighbours are a consequence of two fundamental truths:
"1. The Taliban don’t turn on close militant allies like TTP.
2. Pakistan lost its leverage over the Taliban after the Afg war ended & Taliban no longer needed Pak support."
He said that Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions are not just a result of cross-border terrorism but by the border itself, which has never been recognised by successive Afghanistani governments, including Taliban.
"What’s often overlooked in Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions is that they’re sparked not only by cross-border terrorism but by the border itself. The Taliban, like other Afg govts, doesn’t formally recognize the border. This fuels wider mistrust and compounds other tension points," Kugelman said on X.
Kugelman’s remark indicate that the Afghanistan–Pakistan border crisis stems from deeper, long-standing issues rather than isolated clashes.
The TTP, which was modelled on the Afghan Taliban, is one of the major reasons behind ongoing tensions since Islamabad claims that the TTP's leadership and many of its fighters are based in Afghanistan.
It has also urged, and even warned, the Taliban administration to rein in the TTP. However, Kabul has denied the presence of TTP in the country.
The other flashpoint is the Durand Line, the colonial-era boundary that Afghanistan has never formally recognised.
Pakistan recognises it as the legitimate international border while Afghanistan sees it as an arbitrary division cutting through Pashtun tribal areas. The position did not change even after Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Clashes have erupted periodically as Pakistani forces erect fences or checkpoints and the Taliban resists such moves, claiming they restrict local movement and trade.
Moreover, according to Islamabad, TTP has been exploiting the porous and disputed border to its advantage, using it as both a safe haven and a tactical route. TTP fighters have frequently crossed the rugged, largely unmonitored frontier to launch attacks deep inside Pakistan, targeting largely its security forces, and then retreat into Afghan territory.
Over the last few months, Pakistan has been witnessing a surge in terrorist attacks, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, predominantly targeting the police, law enforcement agencies’ personnel and security forces.
(With inputs from agencies)
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