Pakistan’s Afghan Crisis

The American Conservative | Giorgio Cafiero

Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban have fought sustained hostilities for a year over a border dispute and militant sanctuaries, and have been in an “open war” since February. Giorgio Cafiero writes that Islamabad’s hopes for a cooperative “Taliban 2.0” after August 2021 have become a nightmare, with militant attacks on Pakistan rising since 2024.

Kabul denies sheltering Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and calls Pakistan’s terrorism crisis an internal problem stemming from Islamabad’s failures. Qatari, Turkish and Chinese mediation has so far failed. Russia is so far the only state to recognise the Taliban government formally, though China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and the Central Asian republics keep de facto ties driven largely by commercial, trade and security interests. Kabul is increasingly engaging New Delhi. Cafiero expects limited outside help for Islamabad and warns that the war risks becoming protracted.

Comment

Cafiero treats the rupture as a reversal of Islamabad’s post-2021 hopes, yet the border dispute at its centre is far older. The Durand Line, drawn in 1893 between British India and Afghanistan, is the frontier that Kabul has long declined to treat as settled. Pakistani backing for the Taliban therefore delivered a friendly movement in power, not agreement on the question now driving the fighting. Former ambassador Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhary’s remark that Afghanistan is reverting to its pre-9/11 ways points to the same earlier period.

The first Taliban government offers the parallel. Pakistan recognised it in 1997, alongside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, yet that government never formally accepted the Durand Line. Patronage then, as after 2021, bought influence over who ruled in Kabul but left the frontier position unchanged. If that pattern holds, Amir Khan Muttaqi’s week-long visit to India would show a government widening its options, rather than reversing a Pakistani design.

One difference now favours Kabul over its 1990s predecessor. Only three states ever recognised that emirate. China, Iran and the Central Asian republics now keep de facto ties for trade and security reasons, widening Kabul’s choices beyond Pakistan.

Strategic Question for Discussion

What happens to Pakistan’s campaign against the TTP and BLA if the Durand Line, rather than militant sanctuaries, is the issue Kabul will not trade on?

My assessment is that the campaign would lose any clear endpoint, since sanctuary concessions would be tied to a border question the 1990s emirate also left open. The 1997 precedent suggests a Taliban government keeps that position even when Pakistan is one of its only three recognisers. Cafiero’s point that a TTP crackdown could strain Kabul’s cohesion would then add a second brake.

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