Pakistan’s ‘snakes in the backyard’ bite back: How Islamabad has lost control of its own Frankenstein

A convoy of Taliban security personnel moves along a street as they celebrate the fourth anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan in Kabul on August 15, 2025. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP)

For decades, Pakistan treated jihadist groups as strategic weapons, arming, training, and sheltering them to exert influence over Afghanistan and the region. What Islamabad once called its “strategic depth” has turned into a living nightmare. The very proxies Pakistan nurtured with American support during the Soviet-Afghan war are now striking back, targeting Pakistani soldiers and civilians along the Durand Line. The weekend clashes, the deadliest since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of Kabul, have exposed a bitter truth: Pakistan is now fighting the monsters it helped create, and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Hillary Clinton’s warning comes alive

Over a decade ago, Hillary Clinton famously warned that Pakistan harboured “snakes in the backyard,” cautioning that the jihadist groups it supported could eventually turn on their patron.

"You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard." - Hillary Clinton's blunt message to Pakistan in 2011, has become a chillingly prescient indictment of the nation's deep-rooted love relationship with terrorism.

The Taliban, once Islamabad’s obedient proteges, now defy Pakistani commands, protecting the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and conducting retaliatory strikes across the border. Clinton’s warning was not hyperbole; it was a prophetic glimpse into the consequences of decades of state-sponsored terrorism.

A legacy of the Cold War

When Hillary Clinton warned Pakistan about “keeping snakes in your backyard,” it wasn’t a throwaway line. It was a moment of unfiltered truth -- a reminder from Washington to Islamabad that the monsters you nurture don’t stay leashed forever. Her words were aimed squarely at Pakistan’s long-standing addiction to proxy warfare, a strategy that began in the shadows of the Cold War and has since consumed its own maker.

The story begins in the 1980s, when Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan and the world split along ideological lines. The United States, desperate to bleed Moscow dry, found its perfect partner in Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq. Under his rule, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) became the main artery for America’s covert war, channelling money, weapons, and ideology into the Afghan jihad.

The Mujahideen, lionised as “freedom fighters,” were trained, armed, and radicalized under this partnership. The CIA paid the bills; the ISI picked the favourites. And those favourites were not moderates. They were the ones who spoke the language of jihad, who saw the world in black and white, believers and infidels. Among them were men who would later form Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The war ended, but the fighters didn’t go home. When the Soviets retreated in 1989, Afghanistan was left in ruins, and Pakistan was left with a monster army of ideologues, trained killers, and smugglers who knew no borders and respected no authority. Islamabad’s generals thought they could ride the beast. Instead, they became its prey.

What Clinton called “snakes” were, in reality, Pakistan’s most cherished strategic assets. They were meant to secure “strategic depth” in Afghanistan and bleed India in Kashmir. Yet today, those same networks, from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), have turned Pakistan into a nation under siege.

The TTP, born from the embers of the Afghan jihad, now directs its fury inward. It bombs schools, massacres children, and attacks soldiers who once looked the other way. Its ideology is identical to that of the Afghan Taliban, but its target is Pakistan’s own state. Every suicide blast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, every ambush on a military convoy, is another reminder that the empire of jihad has devoured its emperor.

Even groups like LeT and JeM, cultivated to strike India, have destabilised the soil they grew from. Their networks breed lawlessness and radicalization, creating a perpetual climate of fear that no government in Islamabad can control. What was once a tool of foreign policy is now a cancer eating the state from within.

The consequences are not just political or military. They are economic, social, and moral. Investors flee, tourism collapses, and ordinary Pakistanis live under the shadow of bombs that don’t discriminate between soldier and civilian. The nation that once fancied itself the “fortress of Islam” now trembles behind concrete barricades and internet shutdowns.

The irony could not be darker: a country that thought it could weaponise faith has been weaponized by it. The “strategic depth” Pakistan sought in Afghanistan has become a strategic pit -- deep, dark, and self-dug.

And as the echoes of Hillary Clinton’s warning reverberate across Islamabad, it’s clear she wasn’t just speaking to a government. She was speaking to a country trapped by its own design, a nation that mistook terror for strategy and is now learning, painfully, what it means to live with snakes in its bed.

When allies become adversaries

Recent skirmishes saw Taliban forces attacking Pakistani military posts along the 2,600-km Durand Line in response to Islamabad’s strikes. Heavy exchanges occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, leaving dozens dead on both sides. Kabul claims 58 Pakistani casualties, while Pakistan insists 23 soldiers died and over 200 Taliban fighters were neutralized. This confrontation marks a dramatic breakdown of the Pakistan-Taliban relationship, a bond cultivated over decades. The Kandahari faction and Haqqani Network, once considered Pakistan’s proteges, now act independently, prioritising Afghan interests over Islamabad’s directives.

Clash of proxies and the TTP factor

The conflict’s core lies in Pakistan’s long-standing sponsorship of terrorist networks. Instead of curbing the TTP, the Taliban reportedly offer shelter and support, treating the group as ideological allies. Islamabad’s decades-long gamble -- arming and financing extremists -- has backfired. Pakistan’s strategic depth has transformed into a strategic liability, leaving the country vulnerable to the very forces it once controlled.

Hillary Clinton’s metaphor of Pakistan harbouring “snakes in the backyard” has proven prophetic. The jihadist networks Islamabad nurtured for decades have shed loyalty, leaving the country exposed. The Taliban and TTP threaten to turn this simmering conflict into a wider catastrophe, destabilising Pakistan and the region. The nation that wielded jihad as a tool now faces the consequences of its own creation, and the fight shows no sign of ending.