Fractured Frontiers: The Enduring Shadows of Pakistan-Afghanistan Ties

By Seerat K.

Cover Image Attribute: Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif (center right) and Afghanistan’s Defence Minister Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob sign a ceasefire agreement in Doha, Qatar, on October 19, 2025. / Source: Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretches like a scar across South Asia, a line drawn in colonial ink that has never fully healed. Known as the Durand Line, it divides Pashtun communities, families, and histories, yet it persists as a flashpoint for violence and mistrust. In recent months, this boundary has erupted into open conflict, with artillery exchanges, air strikes, and accusations flying as freely as the bullets. Pakistan claims Afghan soil shelters militants who launch deadly raids into its territory, while Kabul counters that Islamabad's incursions violate sovereignty and endanger civilians. Ceasefires flicker into existence, only to fade amid fresh provocations. Beneath these immediate clashes lies a deeper unraveling: a once-strategic partnership between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban, forged in the fires of past wars, now crumbling under the weight of unmet expectations and shared insurgent legacies. This is not merely a tale of two nations at odds; it is a human story of displacement, loss, and the quiet desperation of those caught in the crosscurrents.
To grasp the current impasse, one must look back to the intricate bonds that once bound Islamabad and the Taliban. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Pakistan served as a conduit for Western and Saudi aid to mujahideen fighters, training thousands in camps along the frontier. This support extended into the 1990s, when Pakistan backed the Taliban's rise to power in 1996, viewing them as a bulwark against Indian influence in Kabul. Elizabeth Threlkeld, a senior fellow and director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center, a think tank dedicated to international peace and security, observes that "Pakistan has for decades tried to have a regime in Afghanistan which it feels should not be part of an Indian encirclement." Yet, as Threlkeld notes, this calculus shifted dramatically after the September 11 attacks. Pakistan joined the U.S.-led coalition against the Taliban, allowing American forces to oust them in 2001. The move bred resentment in Taliban ranks, who saw it as betrayal by a former patron.
The Taliban's return to power in August 2021 initially raised hopes in Islamabad for a compliant neighbor. Pakistan anticipated that its historical investments would yield a friendly regime amenable to curbing cross-border militancy. Instead, attacks by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of Islamist militants seeking to impose sharia in Pakistan, surged. The TTP, founded in 2007, draws ideological inspiration from the Afghan Taliban, pledging allegiance to their supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. Zardasht Shams, a former Afghan deputy ambassador to Pakistan, explains the group's deep roots: "The militants particularly the TTP what they call it Pakistani Taliban. So it has a history of almost two decades. It's like was formally established in 2006 and 7 but though they had presence before that even one time like before 2001 Taliban Pakistan agreed to grant them uh some uh sovereign or like some autonomy in the Swat district of Pakistan which were like the the seniors of these current Taliban." Shams, drawing on his diplomatic experience, portrays the TTP not as a foreign imposition but as a domestic grievance amplified by decades of military operations and unmet promises in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Pakistan's military, stretched thin across multiple fronts, attributes much of the violence to TTP fighters operating from Afghan safe havens. In 2024, the country recorded over 500 militant incidents, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths—the deadliest year in nearly a decade. Binish Javeed, a DW reporter specializing in South Asian security, details the toll: "Just this year around 1,000 security personnel were killed in Pakistan. Uh Pakistan says most of them were by militant attacks... uh uh civilians uh on top of it were killed." Javeed's on-the-ground reporting underscores how these assaults have shifted from remote border outposts to urban centers, including a suicide bombing in Islamabad that claimed 12 lives and injured over two dozen others. Pakistan's defense minister, in a tweet cited by Javeed, warned that "the rulers of Kabul can stop terrorism in Pakistan uh but bringing this war all the way to Islamabad is a message from Kabul uh to which Pakistan has the full strength to respond."
Kabul's denials ring hollow to Pakistani officials, who point to United Nations reports documenting TTP training camps and financial support from elements within the Taliban regime. Threlkeld acknowledges the evidence: "There are well documented signs that the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban is indeed receiving uh support and safe haven across the border in Afghanistan." The ideological affinity complicates enforcement. As Javeed reports, "Afghan Taliban don't see TTP or Tika Taliban Pakistan as a terrorist group. Rather they see them as an entity that's very close to their identity... they share the same ethnicity, same language, they have familial ties." During the two-decade U.S. occupation, TTP fighters provided recruits and logistical aid to the Afghan Taliban, cementing bonds of camaraderie. Shami Shams, a DW analyst, elaborates: "There is not big difference between the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban. They all worked against NATO troops and the US for decades and uh but they the ties are they're very closely linked the two groups."
This reluctance to sever ties manifests in practical challenges for the Afghan Taliban, now burdened with governance amid economic collapse and international isolation. Vidullah Baher, an adjunct lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., catalogs Kabul's efforts: "In 2022 in May uh a ceasefire was negotiated between the TTP and the Pakistani government mediated by the Afghan Taliban. In June of 2023, we had the refugees that had shifted from the northern areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan due to the military operations conducted there... The Taliban complied... than in August 2023. And the biggest thing yet is the Taliban Amir issued an edict banning Afghans from joining the TTP and fighting against Pakistan." Baher argues these steps demonstrate goodwill, yet Pakistan perceives them as insufficient. The Taliban's edict, while symbolic, lacks the coercive power to dismantle TTP networks, given the militants' autonomy and grassroots support within Pakistan's Pashtun belts.
Pakistan's response has escalated from diplomacy to direct action. In late 2024, Islamabad launched precision strikes deep into Afghan territory, targeting alleged TTP facilities in Kabul and Kandahar. The operation, justified as self-defense, inflicted heavy casualties—orchestrated footage released by Pakistan's military showed raids on "Taliban camps and posts and what Pakistan military says were also terrorist training facilities," per Javeed. Afghanistan retaliated with cross-border artillery, closing key crossings like Torkham and claiming 58 Pakistani soldiers killed. The clashes marked the sharpest since 2021, with both sides reporting dozens of deaths. A 48-hour ceasefire followed, brokered at mutual request, but its fragility was evident. Zardasht Shams cautions: "The situation is quite uh volatile. uh we we're not sure whether it will uh sustain uh because uh the Duran line the line that's uh dividing uh the two countries uh it's quite volatile the geography and the different uh like check posts and the security situation over there."
These military tit-for-tats exact a grievous human price, far beyond the fog of competing casualty figures. In Paktika province, Pakistani strikes demolished residential buildings, killing at least 10 civilians, including three cricketers whose deaths prompted Afghanistan's cricket board to withdraw from a series in Pakistan. Villagers sifted through rubble, mourning the loss: "Only ordinary people lived here. No Taliban fighters or government officials lived in this house. Innocent people, women, children were martyred in it." In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, TTP ambushes claimed seven security personnel in a single day, their funerals broadcast as stark reminders of the insurgency's reach. Javeed captures the broader devastation: "The human cost has been incredibly high... So their families a thousand in militant attacks. So their families are suffering. On top of that 500 around 500 civilians have been killed." Civilian deaths from retaliatory operations fuel resentment, eroding the Taliban's domestic legitimacy and bolstering TTP recruitment.
Compounding the violence is Pakistan's aggressive refugee policy, wielded as leverage against Kabul. Hosting nearly 3 million Afghans—the largest refugee population globally—Pakistan faces mounting economic strain. In late 2023, it began deporting undocumented Afghans; by March 2025, even registered ones faced expulsion. Over a million have been repatriated, many to a homeland ravaged by drought, poverty, and Taliban restrictions on women's rights. Fuja Khan, an Afghan-born social worker and advocate in Islamabad, who holds Pakistani nationality but champions refugee causes, describes the plight: "Even those who've lived here for 40, 50 years. Those who have legal cards are being told to leave." Khan's work exposes the human machinery of deportation: night raids, extortions demanding thousands in bribes, and families torn apart. One woman she aids borrowed piecemeal from neighbors—" $18 here, $11 there"—to free detained brothers.
Sheriff Absal Khan Marwat, a lawyer and member of Pakistan's parliament, channels these stories into legal challenges: "It's a universal legal principle. You cannot force someone to return to a place where they fear for their life." Marwat has filed Supreme Court petitions against the expulsions, arguing they violate international norms. Yet, the policy persists, closing border gates like Torkham and stranding traders whose goods rot in limbo. As one merchant laments, "Look at the market. There are no goods here. Most of them went bad at the border. Many vehicles are stranded here. The traders have been ruined." Hamid Hakimi, an associate fellow in the Asia-Pacific program at Chatham House, views this as part of a broader proxy dynamic: "We're also suffering in this region uh from the legacy of the war on terror. uh so the issue of proxies has been in the region since 1970s even even before the uh the Soviet invasion of 1979 of Afghanistan there were proxy relationships."
The refugee squeeze intersects with sectarian and separatist undercurrents in Pakistan's border provinces, where TTP exploits local grievances. In Kurram district, a land dispute between Sunni and Shia tribes escalated into clashes killing dozens, with TTP accused of arming Sunnis. Leakat Ali, a Shia survivor of a convoy ambush, embodies the fear: his group, targeted for their faith, highlights how militants weaponize divisions. Abdul Rahim, a merchant in South Waziristan guarded against TTP extortion, distrusts both insurgents and the state: the military's operations, marred by allegations of enforced disappearances—over 3,000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone, per Amnesty International—breed alienation. Tar Jagra, an opposition politician in the province, attributes this to institutional erosion: "When a government wants to fight against militancy or terrorism within its borders, it needs the support of its own people. And when the military establishment of Pakistan is perceived as becoming a party to a political conflict... then that that is going to increase the gulf between the people and the state."
Parallel insurgencies compound the crisis. In Balochistan, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a secular separatist group, hijacked a train in March 2025, demanding independence. Pakistan alleges Afghan coordination, though evidence remains scant. Sahar Khan, a South Asia security analyst, differentiates the threats: "The basic ideologies of BLA and TTP are fundamentally different. So the BLA is just a secular ethnic nationalist separatist group and TTP is an Islamist group which is fighting for the enforcement of Sharia laws." Khan warns that foreign exploitation—Pakistan fingers India—exacerbates homegrown woes: "We have a own problem. this Balojasthan problem this the grieviances these are own problems the foreign actors they are only exploiting it."
Doha talks in early 2025, mediated by Qatar and Turkey, extended the ceasefire and pledged verification mechanisms, but skepticism abounds. Baher notes "95% progress that was made between the TTP and the Pakistani authorities during the talks that were mediated by the Afghan Taliban," only for military action to derail it. Threlkeld questions durability: "Pakistan does have some leverage... but it again it's going to be very very challenging to convert that leverage into uh a meaningful uh continued ceasefire here given the dynamics at play." Pakistan's pacts, like its defense agreement with Saudi Arabia, signal broader alliances, yet they risk widening the conflict. Shami Shams downplays immediate escalation: "For the moment I do not think that it would become a big big conflict a fullcale military escalation between Afghanistan uh the uh Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Uh it might cool down for a while but it has a longer and possibly more dangerous effect."
The international community watches warily, with counterterrorism as a prerequisite for Taliban engagement. Only Russia grants full recognition; China and India maintain limited ties. Threlkeld observes: "Counterterrorism is often held up as one of those pillars uh that members of the international community refer to repeatedly in talks with the Afghan Taliban." Yet leverage is limited, as Baher counters: "Every other major neighbor does not have security concerns from Afghanistan. Only Pakistan does." Huma and Latifah Shuja, Afghan sisters awaiting U.S. resettlement after fleeing Taliban rule—Huma a former army major, Latifah a prison superintendent—embody the limbo: "It is shameful that girls in Afghanistan can't go to school. Women can't work. Aren't we human beings?" Their story, pieced from faded photos and stalled visas, reveals the personal stakes in geopolitical games.
At root, the Pakistan-Afghanistan rift stems from mismatched visions: Pakistan seeks a pliant buffer, the Taliban an autonomous caliphate unbound by colonial borders. Javeed reflects on the futility: "Pakistan is Afghanistan all these regional countries instead of fighting they ultimately have to find a political solution in the force use of power use of force in the long run never works it's civilians get killed it's a huge cost." Hakimi echoes this: "The population absolutely overwhelmingly in both countries and in the region are keen for their statesmen for their governments to move on." Refugees like Kari Bum, born in Pakistan during the Soviet era, plead for normalcy: "Pakistan is the only home he knows." As borders close and guns blaze, the real casualty is shared humanity—the Pashtun divided, families fractured, futures deferred.
Resolution demands more than truces; it requires addressing grievances. Pakistan must invest in border development, curbing disappearances and fostering trust. The Taliban, for legitimacy, could enforce edicts against TTP operations, perhaps through joint patrols. Mediators like Qatar offer promise, but sustained dialogue is essential. Without it, the frontier remains a tinderbox, where yesterday's allies become today's adversaries, and tomorrow's peace slips further away. In the quiet moments between blasts, voices like Fuja Khan's persist: "I am a human being. I have children... That's why I feel duty bound to help them." It is these threads of compassion that may yet mend the frayed fabric of neighborhood.

About the Author:

Seerat K., Afghan Policy Writer and Analyst, with a postgraduate focus on regional security and political affairs

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