In late February, following terrorist attacks on mosques in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) attributed to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Pakistan launched airstrikes on the border provinces of Afghanistan targeting TTP and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) camps. In response, the Afghan Taliban attacked Pakistan’s military border posts. Retaliatory attacks from both sides continued for much of the last few weeks, including further Pakistani strikes in Kabul and Kandahar, including on a fuel depot at Kandahar Airport and, according to Taliban officials, a hospital in Kabul. Afghan forces, for their part, launched two drones toward Rawalpindi, which Pakistani forces frustrated with electronic countermeasures before they could reach their targets. While there was a brief ceasefire for Eid al-Fitr, fighting has resumed in what Pakistan’s Defense Minister has already described as an “open war.”
The fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan is also a battle of perceptions. Since the return of the Taliban regime in 2021, Pakistan has blamed Afghanistan for harboring and supporting the groups—most significantly the TTP—that have contributed to the 34 percent increase in the number of terrorist attacks it experienced in 2025 alone. Pakistani interlocutors have repeatedly stated that the Taliban authorities’ alleged inaction against the TTP as well as Baloch separatists meant they were failing to uphold assurances about curbing terrorism under the Doha Peace Accord. On the other hand, Taliban authorities insist that the TTP and related security concerns are Pakistan’s internal problems and reject claims that Afghanistan allows militants to operate from its territory. They also argue that by attacking Afghan soil, Pakistan violates Afghanistan’s own sovereignty.
Coming on the heels of repeated crisis cycles, this latest eruption of tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan underscores the emergence of Pakistan’s western border as a major security front at a time when Islamabad—already facing additional pressure from the escalating security situation in the Gulf and Middle East—cannot afford any strategic distraction. While cross-border terrorism from Afghanistan remains a pressing issue for Pakistan, an increasingly kinetic posture on the western border can overstretch Pakistan strategically and divert focus from long-term priorities like deterring Indian aggression and countering terrorism at home. A more sustainable approach would require a two-pronged strategy of institutionalized diplomatic engagement and calibrated military coercive measures.
Pakistan’s Policy toward Afghanistan and the TTP
With the Taliban’s return to Kabul in 2021, Pakistan had expected that the Taliban would restrain TTP, per their commitments in the Doha Peace Agreement, and possibly provide Pakistan with the strategic depth that it had always desired against Indian aggression. These assumptions proved to be short-lived: Historical and ideological ties between the Taliban and TTP and organizational linkages make it difficult for the Taliban to act decisively against TTP even if it wanted to. Those ties also make it easier for the Taliban to use TTP as a proxy against its former sponsor. In addition, the Taliban wants to build domestic and international legitimacy, and doing so requires them to assert their own strategic autonomy. As a result, the TTP has grown stronger in the border regions of both Pakistan and Afghanistan, allowing it to increase the pace and more recently the scale of attacks both on Pakistani security forces and later on civilians.
Since 2021, Pakistan has relied on third-party mediation, along with bilateral diplomacy and military-level contact, to manage its frustrations with its western neighbor. Despite its frustration, Pakistan largely kept to this strategy until October 2025, when, following a TTP attack on Pakistani soldiers, it carried out retaliatory air strikes inside Afghanistan, particularly in Kabul, allegedly to target TTP head Noor Wali Mehsud. Pakistan’s policy shift toward Afghanistan not only included the direct attacks on TTP hideouts in Afghanistan, but also included a decisive policy on the repatriation of Afghan refugees and frequent closure of border crossings between the two countries. This constituted a significant shift in strategy from one of engagement to one of coercive signaling. The goals behind this strategy were to create greater costs for the Afghan Taliban and create a buffer zone through which to stifle cross-border infiltrations by targeting border posts and destroying the large ammunition cache left behind after the U.S. withdrawal.
“While cross-border terrorism from Afghanistan remains a pressing issue for Pakistan, an increasingly kinetic posture on the western border can overstretch Pakistan strategically and divert focus from long-term priorities like deterring Indian aggression and countering terrorism at home.”
After deadly ground fighting, the two countries agreed on a fragile ceasefire at the end of October, facilitated by Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. This led to additional rounds of negotiations in Qatar and Turkey to maintain the ceasefire and develop monitoring mechanisms. But because of competing narratives on both sides and the failure to find a common ground on TTP, the ceasefire was short-lived, and led to further attacks and greater escalation in 2026.
The heightened conflict and diplomatic breakdown in the last few weeks have created immediate strategic risks. First, the prolonged conflict has further militarized the border regions with increased fortifications and drone surveillance systems used both for ISR and kinetic applications, shifting into asymmetric technological warfare. This dual-use surveillance lowers the threshold for escalation as it enables more frequent, low-cost, and deniable strikes, while it simultaneously transforms border militarization into a digitized and monitored ecosystem.
Second, Pakistan’s closure of the Chaman and Torkham crossings raises the risk of a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan due to a shortage of supplies. Apart from the humanitarian crisis, this situation carries multiple strategic risks, including mass unregulated movement of people into Pakistan due to economic distress and greater militant infiltration.
Lastly, repeated crises have severely fractured already-fragile diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Without a basis for bilateral discussion, or intentional third-party intervention, both countries will only become more vulnerable to violence within their borders and primed for greater escalation across the border.
Pakistan’s Strategic Balancing in a Wider Regional Conflict
The U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran have changed security dynamics in the Gulf and the Middle East and will have far-reaching consequences on the strategic dynamics of South Asia as well. Pakistan now faces security challenges on each its western and eastern borders, and is vulnerable to greater regional instability, including its energy security. On all these fronts, Pakistan is trying to avoid escalation while maintaining deterrence. However, there are certain limitations in Islamabad’s strategy.
First of all, Pakistan has limited leverage over Taliban. Before 2021, Pakistan’s influence stemmed from different factors, including the ties of Taliban leadership, their families, and their businesses to Pakistani soil. However, the Taliban’s quest for international recognition and legitimacy for the new regime meant it was less dependent on Pakistan. In response, Pakistan’s reliance on punitive measures, especially the rushed repatriation of Afghan refugees, proved to be counterproductive: It impacted ordinary Afghans but did not compel the Taliban leadership to stop providing terrorist groups shelter. Moreover, Pakistan’s airstrikes have also failed to compel that change; while this is certainly a problem facing air campaigns around the world, Pakistan’s limited leverage and current strategy appear unlikely to make major headway in its compellent efforts.
Secondly, the broader regional crisis in West Asia has diverted diplomatic attention from the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, who were the primary mediators between Islamabad and Kabul, are now facing direct challenges to their own security from the current war. With space for bilateral diplomacy seemingly shrinking, China has tried to play a mediating role in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite its engagement with both sides, however, China is running up against similar problems as past mediators: Pakistan has vowed to continue its policy of non-engagement unless the Taliban government changes its position on the presence of the TTP and other terror groups operating on Afghan soil. As such, Pakistan and Afghanistan are likely to remain locked in escalation cycles for some time yet.
“The major challenge for Pakistan for the foreseeable future will be to counter cross-border militancy while making sure that the confrontation with Kabul remains short.”
Conclusion
While a full-on confrontation is unlikely because both states depend on trade and border stability, recent drone attacks on Pakistan from Afghanistan clearly suggest that Taliban may rely on cheap but disruptive technologies in the future—a lesson they may well have learned from global conflicts, including the Ukraine war and the Iran crisis. The major challenge for Pakistan for the foreseeable future will be to counter cross-border militancy while making sure that the confrontation with Kabul remains short.
A more sustainable approach for Islamabad would be to stagger, not isolate, diplomatic engagement with Kabul alongside selected coercive measures. This requires prioritizing bilateral channels and third-party mediation to end the current hostilities and work toward a verifiable commitment on the part of the Taliban to deny patronage to TTP. It would also require Pakistan utilize calibrated coercive measures, including intelligence operations, against high-value TTP targets, complementing its extant economic and transit leverage to inflict the cost of inaction for the Taliban. However, without strengthening its own internal security procedures, Pakistan will not be able to achieve meaningful gains. To that end, Pakistan should also enhance its border control mechanisms and strengthen its internal counterterrorism capacity by improving ISR coverage at the more vulnerable border regions and crossings, and introducing biometric border management system at the key crossings. Without undertaking these measures, a more enduring conflict with Afghanistan could force Pakistan to refocus a considerable part of its military strength, including air power, to mitigate threats from the west—raising questions for its ability to deter its primary rival, India, to the east.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of South Asian Voices, the Stimson Center, or our supporters.
Also Read: Cross-Border Strikes and Legal Contradictions: Pakistan’s Strategic Dilemma
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Images 1 & 2: Government of Pakistan via X
