Brothers at War

The Taliban–Pakistan Split and the End of a Dysfunctional Alliance.

CIM Strategic Analysis

[A photo of Torkham or Chaman / “Friendship Gate”]

For decades, the operative assumption in South Asia’s security discourse was that the Taliban were Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan – a problematic hedge conceived by parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services against a two front squeeze from India to the East and a hostile Kabul to the West. That assumption was if not flawed, then definitely too tidy: the relationship was always transactional, asymmetrical, and crowded with armed actors – Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Pakistani jihadist factions, tribal power-brokers etc. – whose interests overlapped only when enemies were shared. Once the United States withdrew in August 2021, and the Taliban took Kabul, the facade of militant alignment collapsed under the weight of three hard realities: the long standing Durand Line dispute, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TPP) sanctuary problem, and the Taliban leadership’s determination to assert independence from any external tutelage, including Islamabad’s. By 2025, these frictions have matured into sustained skirmishes, drone and air strikes, border closures, and cycles of retaliatory fire along the disputed frontier, punctuated only by fragile ceasefires and emergency diplomatic efforts to diffuse the tension.

Historical/ Political Drivers of the Conflict

The origins of the partnership between Pakistan’s military and the Taliban are familiar. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sustained lines to the Taliban as they overran much of Afghanistan, and to allied factions such as the Haqqani network – initially nurtured during the anti-Soviet jihad and later increasingly embedded in the Taliban leadership. The logic, in Islamabad’s eyes, was cold: better a friendly, even if austere, emirate in Kabul than a government aligned with New Delhi, and better militant proxies to shape outcomes across the Durand Line than the uncontrollable chaos of civil war. It should be noted that this policy was never an uncontested national consensus inside Pakistan; it was a security-bureaucratic strategy. But it gave the Taliban depth of support, staging ground, safe havens, and diplomatic channels through the 2000s and 2010s while they fought NATO and the Afghan Republic.

Yet even in that period the seeds of rivalry were present. The boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan itself – the British drawn Durand Line of 1893 – was never formally recognized by any Kabul government, including the first Taliban regime. The border slices through Pasthun tribal lands and defies local social geography. Pakistan treated it as an international border; successive Afghan governments treated it as a question left deliberately open by history. That ambiguity created – and still does – daily flashpoints: over fencing, patrols, customs, smuggling routes, and the sovereignty performance each side needs to project to its own public. When Taliban fighters, now the Afghan state’s de facto border guards, pulled down stretches of Pakistan’s fence in late 2021-2022, it signaled that even perceived ‘brothers in arms’ would not validate Pakistan’s preferred cartography. 

The Taliban taking control of Afghanistan with the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, made these structural disagreements unmanageable. Pakistan expected leverage in Kabul. Many Taliban cadres had spent years in Pakistan’s borderlands; senior figures in the Haqqani wing maintained deep relationships there; Islamabad had facilitated the Doha track and, for years, been the address of both pressure and persuasion for the movement. But the Taliban regime that consolidated after August 2021 was not the pliant client imagined in some Pakistani political and military circles. Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada centralized rule in Kandahar, created parallel structures, and privileged a southern clerical network that prized ideological purity and independence over transactional accommodation. That internal consolidation reduced the utility of old ISI circuits and narrowed the space for external influence – even that of the Haqqanis, who themselves have navigated the line between pragmatic ties to Pakistan and loyalty to a movement whose core leadership now operates from Kandahar, not Quetta. 

If concerns over sovereignty and leadership autonomy formed the political bedrock of the split, the immediate trigger for confrontation was the TTP. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan – distinct from, but historically intertwined with, the Afghan Taliban – regrouped after 2021 with its leadership, fighters, and logistics based inside Afghanistan. The frequency of attacks inside Pakistan increased as the TTP exploited Afghan sanctuary and drew on trans-border tribal ties to facilitate its jihadist operations. Islamabad demanded action; Kabul denied hosting Pakistani militants and argued that the TTP was Pakistan’s internal problem. A brief ceasefire between the Pakistani military and the TTP militants – mediated by the Afghan Taliban leadership – collapsed in 2022. By 2024 and with increasing frequency in 2025, the Pakistani military shifted its anti-TTP strategy to overt cross-border strikes and kinetic reprisals, while the Taliban countered the violations of Afghan sovereignty with counter battery fire and seizures of border posts. Each round of escalation was followed by hurried back channel talks and temporary truces arranged in Doha, Riyadh, or regional capitals as venues. But the pattern hardened: Pakistan targeted TTP assets in Afghanistan with increasingly broader, less targeted, strikes, and the Taliban responded with force and rhetoric that framed Pakistan as an aggressor violating Afghan sovereignty. 

Given the escalating Pakistani military actions, why did the Taliban refuse to decisively move against the TTP despite rising costs? The reasons are layered. First, ideology and fraternity: both the Afghan Taliban and the TTP are Deobandi-inspired jihadist movements with shared networks of kinship and scholarship (Deobandi Islamic teachings advocate for armed struggle to establish an Islamic state). Even when their political aims diverge, the Afghan Taliban’s clergy hesitate to make war on fellow ‘mujahideen’, especially Pashtun militants who fought the Pakistani state largely in the same frontier belts that sheltered the Afghan insurgency for two decades. Secondly, regime security: The Taliban’s paramount fear is splintering within their own ranks, particularly if Kandahar were to order a campaign that pits Afghan Taliban units against Pakistani Taliban factions with deep personal ties to commanders. The risk of defections – feeding rivals or the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – is not a trivial matter. Third, bargaining: sheltering TTP elements, or at a minimum refusing to expel them, gives Kabul a lever over Islamabad in a regional environment where formal recognition and aid are scarce. A de facto sanctuary becomes collateral in ongoing negotiations.

Pakistan, meanwhile, is not the same patron it was in the 1990s or 2000s. The country has weathered economic crises, political turbulence, and a steady rise in militant violence across Pakistan, especially in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The military’s post-2023 posture – under Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir – has emphasized internal stabilization, protection of Chinese interests under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the reassertion of deterrence along the Western frontier. The calculus is that a permissive sanctuary across the border cannot be tolerated. Thus the use of airpower, drones, and precision strikes against targets inside Afghanistan in December 2024, and again in 2025, coupled with punitive closures of key crossings and a coercive deportation policy aimed at more than a million undocumented Afghans. These measures sought to impose costs on Kabul for inaction against the TTP and to disrupt smuggling flows that Islamabad ties to its inflation and revenues woes. They also had predictable consequences: Taliban reprisals, nationalist outrage, and deepening hostility among border communities.

The Pakistan/ Afghanistan border is now a battlefield, but it is also an economic lifeline. Afghanistan is landlocked; Pakistan’s ports and roads are its primary arteries to global markets. After the Taliban takeover, Afghan transit cargo surged, including high-risk categories that Pakistani authorities link to smuggling operations. Islamabad’s smuggling crackdown since 2023 – including tariff and non-tariff barriers, tighter custom controls, and ad-hoc closures – have hit Afghan traders hard, and Kabul responded by establishing similar trade reducing measures. As a result, formal transit volumes have all but collapsed, and the tensions have escalated into a steady militarization of custom disputes, with firefights at Torkham or Chaman often starting with altercations over paperwork, and ending with artillery fire. When both sides shut gates, the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families evaporate, and resentment erupts which re-feeds the conflict ecosystem.

Social Drivers of the Conflict

To further understand how erstwhile partners became rivals, we also need to take a closer look at the social geography of the frontier. The Durand Line bisects Pasthun tribal society: families, markets, and madrasas strudel the fence. For decades, Pakistan’s counterinsurgency operations in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas produced displacement, militarized policing, and a generation of young men socialized in conflict economies. Across the line, forty-plus years of war hollowed out formal governance and strengthened tribal networks. When the Taliban became the Afghan state, those social circuits did not become less potent; rather, they became state adjacent. Thus, a customs ban in Chaman is not just a bureaucratic act; it is perceived as an affront to a clan’s livelihood. A Pakistani drone strike that kills a TTP commander in Paktika may also kill cousins who fought in Kandahar. Each kinetic episode is therefore embedded in a dense web of cross-border relationships: fueling cycles of violence and revenge, and narrowing room for de-escalation. 

Any actions defending Afghani sovereignty – however symbolic – provides fuel for the cycles of violence. In late 2021, for example, Taliban units physically blocked Pakistani engineers from extending and repairing the border fence; an incident that was captured on camera. The message was that Kabul would not ratify a line it never recognized, and would contest every inch wherever it could. In Islamabad, that spectacle cut against the regime narrative that ‘our friends’ were not in charge in Kabul. It suggested instead that the new regime saw itself as the custodian of the traditional Afghan position. Since then, every announcement of new border fortifications or Pakistani claims of recaptured ‘Taliban outposts’, has had a domestic audience on both sides that reads these events as existential proof of either sovereignty or humiliation. Once a dispute becomes in essence a ‘nationhood ritual’, technocratic fixes are insufficient.

Internal Taliban politics compound the problem. The movement is not monolithic. The Kandahar-centric emirate under Hibatulla has narrowed decision-making and pushed hardline social edicts that have alienated parts of the political office generation and figures associated with the Haqqani network, who maintain the thickest ties to Pakistan. That centralization makes tactical de-escalation harder: if Islamabad’s channels run primarily to Haqqani-aligned officials in Kabul, but the veto resides with clerics in Kandahar who define the TTP question as an Islamic – rather than a purely security – issue, the space for pragmatic tradeoffs shrinks. It also means that when Pakistani operations hit Haqqani-linked figures or networks, they carry the risk of catalyzing internal Taliban cohesion against an external enemy rather than producing compliance.

Pakistan’s own domestic politics face parallel constraints. Civil-military strain, a punishing economic stabilization program, tensions with India erupting into open warfare, and a spike in spectacular attacks – some claimed by TTP or affiliates, others by Baloch insurgents – have created pressure on the army to demonstrate control along the Western frontier. The 2024 cross border strikes were justified publicly as counter-terrorism operations against TTP sanctuaries; subsequent classes in October of this year escalated after Pakistani strikes near Kabul, with both sides trading claims of mass casualties and battlefield success, and with border closures used as strategic leverage. Each round has produced hurried ceasefires, most recently with Doha as the likely venue for talks, but ceasefires without a shared security framework simply reset the clock to the next provocation.

One final factor is the refugee lever. Islamabad’s mass expulsion of undocumented Afghans – announced in October 2023 and pursued throughout 2024 and 2025 – was publicly tied to security concerns and Afghan government non-cooperation against the TTP. Kabul denounced the move as collective punishment. The policy fed a spiral: Taliban officials doubled down rhetorically; border friction worsened as families tried to cross; and each side’s media painted the other as indifferent to human suffering. In the absence of formal recognition and aid, the Taliban treated international sympathy for refugees as diplomatic capital; Pakistan treated enforcement as proof that it would not be extorted by Kabul’s inaction. Neither is a winning formula for a relationship reset.

Military Drivers of the Conflict

If the political and social drivers explain why the partnership frayed, the military balance – and how it is perceived – explains why both sides are willing to test each other. Pakistan’s army is a large, conventionally organized force with airpower, ISR, and long experience fighting insurgents in rough terrain. The Taliban field light infantry, mortars, captured armored vehicles, and drones in limited numbers, with cohesion tied to local commanders and religious authority. A lack of international recognition constrains Taliban modernization, but they compensate with intimate terrain knowledge, hardened cadres, and an ability to mass quickly at border outposts. When firefights erupt at Kurram, Angoor Adda, Torkham, or Spin Boldak, the immediate tactical picture often favors the side that can bring precision fires first. The Taliban answer with surprise, overmatched numbers at specific posts, and the political shock of claiming Pakistani casualties publicly. Neither side wants a full scale war, presumingly; both want to alter the other’s behavior at the border. This is classic coercive bargaining, conducted with live ammunition.

There is temptation in Islamabad to argue that the Taliban simply broke faith, that after years of sanctuary and diplomatic efforts on their behalf, they turned on their benefactors. That tells only half the story, though. The Taliban were never a single tool in Pakistani hands; they were, and still are, an Islamist-nationalist movement with their own hierarchy of priorities in which Islamic legitimacy and Afghan sovereignty outrank any patron’s preferences. For the Taliban emirate, yielding to Pakistan on the TTP question or the Durand Line in its first years of re-established rule, would have risked a legitimacy crisis at home and fissures within the movement. For Pakistan, allowing a cross-border insurgent sanctuary to metastasize invites further destabilization of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, threatens much needed Chinese infrastructure projects, and erodes the army’s credibility. These are not miscommunications; they are incompatible vital interests.

Economic Drivers of the Conflict

The trade angle accentuates the incompatibility. After 2021, cross border commerce briefly appeared to offer a stabilizing foundation for Taliban-Palistan relations. Afghanistan depends overwhelmingly on Pakistan for external trade: nearly 70% of Afghan imports and over 60% of exports pass through Pakistani ports, primarily Karachi and Gwadar. According to Pakistan’s bureau of statistics, bilateral trade volume exceeded 1.8 billion dollars in fiscal year 2022, but official figures disguise a much larger shadow economy operating through informal routes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Since the Taliban’s return to power, Pakistan’s Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) – a mechanism that allows duty free passage for goods to landlocked Afghanistan – surged by an estimated 65% between 2022 and 2023, particularly in high value categories such as electronics, textiles, cosmetics, and tires. Islamabad’s customs authorities, however, claimed that much of this trade was in ‘ghost cargo’, re-routed back into Pakistan’s domestic market through smuggling rings, depriving the treasury of billions in duties and exacerbating Pakistan’s chronic trade deficit. 

As Pakistan’s economy has further slid into crisis – inflation peaking near 38% in mid-2023, the rupee collapsing, and IMF conditions tightening – the perception hardened in Islamabad that Afghan transit commerce had become a pipeline for illicit re-exports and dollar flight. The Ministry of Commerce imposed sweeping import restrictions and higher documentation requirements under the 2023 Transit Trade Rules, while the Federal Board of Revenue cracked down on items such as mobile phones, textiles, and auto parts. These measures, combined with repeated border closures, reduced official transit cargo volume by over two-thirds by early 2025. For Afghanistan’s fragile economy, where customs and border duties account for roughly 45 percent of state revenue, the effects were immediate and devastating. Traders in Kandahar and Jalalabad reported months-long backlogs and losses exceeding 200 million dollars, while the Taliban government accused Islamabad of ‘economic coercion’ and ‘collective punishment’.

Beneath these official statistics lies the deeper structural problem: the border economy itself is largely informal, and both states depend on it in contradictory ways. The black market trade – estimated by the World Bank at 2-3 billion dollars annually along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier – sustains entire communities but undermines regulatory authority on both sides. In cities like Chaman or Torkham, smugglers, transport syndicates, and tribal intermediaries operate sophisticated logistics networks moving fuel, food staples, electronics, and narcotics. Often with the knowledge of and frequently under the protection of local Taliban units or Pakistani paramilitary commanders who extract rents. When either government attempts to formalize or tax these routes, violence follows. The Taliban’s local commanders have seized customs posts to maintain control of lucrative smuggling corridors; Pakistan’s Frontier Corps has retaliated with raids and closures. Each closure not only disrupts revenue but also erodes the limited social contract the Taliban have built with border communities, turning economic grievances into political resistance.  

The black market economy also feeds directly into the security dilemma. The same networks that transport untaxed goods often traffic weapons and explosives. Pakistan’s intelligence services estimate that smuggling routes in Khost, Paktika, and Nangarhar double as supply lines for the TTP and criminal gangs operating in Balochistan. For the Taliban, these channels are simultaneously a source of income and potential liability. Shutting them down risks alienating local commanders who finance themselves through transit levies and contraband trade. Thus, economic enforcement becomes inseparable from security enforcement, and the border is not just a customs line but a marketplace for coercion.

In effect, trade and smuggling have turned into instruments of statecraft. Islamabad now uses border closures and transit restrictions as tools of political pressure, leveraging Afghanistan’s dependency on Pakistani ports to extract concessions on counterterrorism. The Taliban, in turn, weaponizes informality: tolerating or tacitly encouraging smuggling as a means to sustain its economy and resist Pakistani dominance. This dynamic produces a vicious cycle: every restriction by Pakistan strengthens the informal economy; every expansion of smuggling deepens Islamabad’s sense of grievance and justification for punitive measures. By mid-2025, the economic frontier had become an extension of the military one – both defined by misrust, both driven by necessity, and both feeding the perception that the other side’s survival depends on undermining its neighbor’s control.

Regional Drivers of the Conflict

Nor is this conflict purely bilateral. Regional politics complicate every move and multiply the incentives for confrontation. India’s re-emergence as a visible actor in Kabul’s diplomatic orbit is perhaps the most potent external irritant for Islamabad. Since 2022, New Delhi has cautiously re-established a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, reopened limited aid channels, and sought to position itself as a non-military partner focused on humanitarian assistance, infrastructure repair, and food security. For Pakistan’s military, however, even this minimal engagement revives long-standing fears of encirclement – the ‘two front dilemma’ of facing India to the East, and a potentially India-friendly government to the West. Indian outreach to the Taliban, though modest and carefully hedged, undermines Islamabad’s belief that it could monopolize influence in a post-American withdrawal Afghanistan. Indian diplomats have met Taliban representatives in Doha and Moscow formats, offered wheat and medicine shipments through Chabahar, and quietly signalled willingness to fund small scale infrastructure projects. These moves, in Pakistan’s eyes, signify the erosion of its ‘strategic depth’, an especially sensitive prospect as border attacks from the TTP surge and the army faces mounting domestic criticism. The specter of Indian intelligence footprints in Kabul, however limited, amplifies the perception that Afghanistan could once again become a platform for pressure on Pakistan’s western flank, a narrative that the Pakistani security establishment invokes to justify cross-border strikes and tighter control of trade flows.

China’s presence adds another lawyer of complexity. Beijing’s strategic investment in Pakistan through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), estimated at over 62 billion dollars in pledged projects – anchors Pakistan’s development and foreign policy orientation. Yet CPEC’s western routes, traversing Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, run directly through the regions most destabilized by Taliban-linked militancy and cross-border infiltration. Each TTP attack or border clash therefore jeopardizes Chinese assets and personnel, pushing Beijing to pressure Islamabad for greater security while simultaneously encouraging quiet outreach to Kabul to prevent escalation. Since 2023, China has hosted several rounds of trilateral dialogue with Pakistan and the Taliban foreign ministry, pressing both sides to coordinate on counterterrorism and infrastructure protection. But Beijing’s calculus is problematic: it prefers stability over alignment. Chinese firms are already eyeing Afghanistan's lithium and copper reserves, particularly the Mes Aynak mine, and have conducted exploratory talks with the Taliban government. This emerging economic interest gives the Taliban a modicum of leverage and signals to Pakistan that China will not indefinitely subordinate its regional ambitions to Islamabad’s security narrative.

For Pakistan, that shift is unnerving. The military once assumed that Beijing’s strategic partnership would serve as a counterweight to Indian influence, replace American military patronage, and provide diplomatic cover for its Afghan policies. Instead, China’s balancing approach – maintaining relations with both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and increasingly with Tehran – underscores that Beijing’s end goal is corridor stability, not Pakistani predominance. When Chinese envoys urge de-escalation, it is out of commercial and security interests, not alliance loyalty. In practice, this means that Islamabad can not count on automatic Chinese backing for aggressive moves along the border, particularly those that threaten CPEC’s viability.

Simultaneously, Iran and Russia have reasserted themselves in Afghanistan’s diplomatic space. Tehran maintains economic and security ties with the Taliban, motivated by border stability, counterterrorism against the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), and the management of water disputes over the Helmand River. Russia, for its part, uses the Moscow Format talks to project regional leadership and hedge against Western re-entry into Central Asia. Both see the Taliban as a fact of life, not an aberration – a perspective that weakens Pakistan’s efforts to isolate Kabul diplomatically. Meanwhile, Gulf States and Qatar act as crisis managers, stepping in to host ceasefire discussions or mediate deportation disputes. Each of these actors pursues its own interests, not Pakistan’s or Afghanistan’s, turning every truce or transit deal into a complex negotiation that extends beyond the two principals. 

The result is that Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions have become embedded in a regional system of competing anxieties. Pakistan views Kabul’s independent diplomacy with India, China, and Iran as an erosion of its sphere of influence; the Taliban interpret Pakistan’s coercive tactics – drone strikes, deportations, and border closures – as attempts to reassert dominance under the guise of counter-terrorism. Every border clash now ripples through multiple capitals: Beijing worries for its engineers, Tehran watches for refugee flows, Moscow leverages the crisis for influence, and New Delhi quietly celebrates Pakistan’s strategic overextension. The Taliban exploit this multipolar attention skillfully, playing external actors off one another to avoid dependence on any single patron. Pakistan, in turn, seeks to marshal shared regional fears of terrorism to justify its hard line against Kabul. In this environment, even a narrow ceasefire becomes a regional coordination exercise – a test not only of bilateral restraint but of how many external interests can be balanced before the next eruption of violence resets the fragile equilibrium. 

Unraveling the Alliance: A Step-by-Step Deterioration

What, then, is the mechanism by which partners became rivals? It is a simple chain.

First, victory removed the common enemy. As long as the Afghan Taliban were insurgents against the U.S. backed Republic, Pakistani aid could be rationalized as counter-Indian and anti-Kabul hedging. Once the Taliban became the Afghan state, Pakistan was no longer the indispensable sanctuary. An Afghan nationalist default reasserted itself in Kabul’s posture toward the border, sovereignty, and foreign influence.

Second, safe haven externalized the cost of that sovereignty posture. The TTP operated from Afghan soil and escalated inside Pakistan. Islamabad reframed the issue from ‘brotherly persuasion’ to ‘hostile negligence’, then to ‘compellence, deploying strikes and border coercion. Kabul answered as a sovereign would: with denial, counter-force, and rhetorical escalation. The ‘family quarrel’ became interstate conflict.

Third, border politics fused with identity. The Durand Line is not a technocratic line on a map; it is an identity wound for many Afghans and a sovereignty litmus test for Pakistan. Taliban leaders could not bless the fence without losing face; Pakistani commanders could not let the fence be dismantled without losing control. Skirmishes that a decade ago would have been deniable militia incidents are now fights between state military actors.

Fourth, transactional leverage failed because each side misread the other’s red lines. Pakistan believed deportations, closures, and strikes would bend Kabul; the Taliban believed battlefield pain would coerce Islamabad into accepting Kabul’s ‘mediation’ with the TTP and de-facto border ambiguity. Both were wrong – hence the cycle of ceasefires announced with great ceremony and broken within days.

Fifth, internal politics on both sides reward confrontation. In Kabul, standing up to Pakistan validates nationalist credentials and unites factions otherwise split over social policy. In Islamabad, punishing the TTP and ‘calling out’ Kabul’s duplicity shores up a military battered by domestic criticism. Leaders trapped in these incentive structures will choose coercive episodes even when they understand the strategic costs.

The current skirmishes are therefore not aberrations. They are the surface expressions of a structural correction in Afghan-Palistani relations after the U.S. exit. None of this means that a formal war is likely. Both governments want to avoid full escalation. Pakistan cannot afford a prolonged two front security crisis while trying to stabilize its economy; the Taliban cannot risk exposing military weaknesses or inviting a regional coalition against them. The ‘new normal’ as some analysts frame it, is a managed hostility: a deterrent signaling through staccato force, intermittent closures, and episodic talks. But ‘managed’ is doing a lot of work. With every new TTP attack in Pakistan that Kabul is accused of enabling, and with every Pakistani strike that Kabul denounces as aggression, the political space for compromise narrows. Each side now has an entrenched narrative of betrayal.

The historical irony is stark. Pakistan’s security doctrine long bet that friendly Islamists in Kabul would mute the Pashtun border question and keep India out. Instead, the Taliban government asserts Afghan sovereignty against Pakistan at the very places – gates, fences, posts – where the Durand Line becomes tangible. The TTP, born as a reaction to Pakistani state presence in the tribal belt and radicalized by years of war, now uses Afghan space to strike Pakistan and dares the emirate to crack down on ideological kin. A partnership born of convenience expired the moment interests diverged and the power to enforce bargains disappeared. In short, the old patron-proxy script does not survive statehood.

If the objective is to stop partners from becoming permanent rivals, the prerequisite is a narrow, enforceable security compact around three points. First, verifiable curbs on TTP operations from Afghan soil, achieved by not wishful thinking about Taliban ‘policing’ but by concrete mechanisms – for example, joint liaison at key crossings, third party facilitation for de-confliction, and a tacit line separating areas where Taliban forces will interdict and areas where Pakistan will refrain from unilateral strikes. Secondly, a ‘sovereignty code’ at the border: both sides agree to protocols for fencing and repairs (even without Afghan recognition of the Durand Line), rules for opening/ closing border gates, and a hotline that actually answers when traders, not just soldiers, are at risk. Third, a trade corridor carve-out: transit flows protected from political retaliation, with smuggling addressed via targeted risk control and data sharing rather than blanket bans that invite gunfire. None of this resolves the Durand Line dispute or the recognition question; it merely buys time and lowers temperature. But in this conflict system, time and temperature are the only currencies that matter. 

Until such a compact exists, the logic of escalation will persist. Pakistan’s military will continue to strike TTP nodes inside Afghanistan when attacks spike at home; the Taliban will respond with force and seizure of posts to reassert sovereignty and domestic legitimacy; both will close gates, hurting the very communities whose consent they need; and the region will manage yet another frozen conflict that occasionally thaws into violence. The tragedy is that both sides know this; the politics that made them partners in the 1990s now make them rivals, and neither can easily step back without paying costs they are unwilling – or, nor now, unable – to bear.

Postscript: A Fragile Ceasefire Amid Entrenched Distrust

The Doha ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan, brokered by Qatar and Turkey with Egypt’s quiet diplomatic backing, represents the first tangible pause in a conflict that has steadily eroded the foundations of one of South Asia’s most consequential relationships. After a week of artillery duels, drone strikes, and mounting civilian casualties, the agreement is a relief – but not a resolution. Both sides enter this truce weakened, suspicious, and locked in mutually reinforcing narratives of betrayal. The ceasefire may halt the shooting for now, but it does little to address the structural grievances that made this confrontation inevitable.

The role of Qatar and Turkey in mediating the accord is not coincidental. Both have cultivated open channels with the Taliban while maintaining working relations with Islamabad, and both possess the diplomatic agility to operate outside the heavy shadow of Washington or Beijing. Doha, in particular, has emerged as the indispensable broker in any negotiation involving the Taliban: Doha has been hosting the movement’s political office for a decade and had previously facilitated talks that led to the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. Its credibility with the Taliban is real, grounded in years of access and discretion. Turkey’s participation adds a layer of military credibility: Ankara has a long-standing relationship with Pakistan’s armed forces, extensive intelligence cooperation, and aspirations to serve as a Muslim-majority mediator in regional conflicts. Egypt’s quiet inclusion reflects Cairo’s interest in reasserting a limited but visible diplomatic role across the Islamic world, particularly in arenas where Saudi Arabia and Iran are less active.

The ceasefire’s immediate effect is to pull both sides back from the brink of a border war neither can afford. The fighting along the 2,600km frontier had reached a level of intensity unseen since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, with Pakistani airstrikes hitting deep inside Afghan territory and Taliban units mounting retaliatory attacks against Pakistani border posts. Both governments faced domestic pressure to appear unyielding. Pakistan’s military leadership have publicly demanded that Kabul ‘rein in proxies’ operating from Afghan soil, while the Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihulah Mujahid, accused Islamabad of spreading disinformation and violating Afghan sovereignty. The Doha agreement, therefore, serves as a face serving mechanism for both sides – a way to step back without appearing to capitulate.

Still, the language of the ceasefire is conspicuously thin. It contains no formal verification mechanism, no third-party monitoring presence, and no enforcement provisions beyond the promise of follow-up meetings. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has described these meetings, set for October 25th in Istanbul, as an opportunity to “establish a concrete and verifiable monitoring mechanism”. That in itself is telling: such a mechanism does not yet exist. In practice, as we have seen in previous ceasefire agreements, both governments will rely on military to military channels and diplomatic intermediaries to prevent immediate relapse into fighting. The Taliban’s commitment not to allow Afghan soil to be used for attacks on Pakistan is consistent with its official rhetoric, but this position has been declared before, and repeatedly violated by militant groups operating along the border.

The question, therefore, is not whether this ceasefire will hold indefinitely – it likely will not – but whether it can evolve into a structured dialogue that institutionalizes restraint. The experience of the past four years suggests that without a credible monitoring agreement and a parallel political track, tactical truces quickly disintegrate. The Taliban’s internal fragmentation further complicates matters: the Kandahar based leadership under Hibatullah retains ultimate authority but delegates operational control to field commanders, many of whom are closely tied to tribal networks straddling the frontier. Even if Kabul’s central command desires de-escalation, its ability to enforce discipline among border units remains uncertain. For Pakistan, meanwhile, any new surge in attacks by the TTP will almost certainly trigger renewed strikes, regardless of diplomatic promises made in Doha or Istanbul; domestic discontent and political fragility demand a strong military response.

 Nevertheless, the follow-up meetings are significant precisely because they create a procedural space for crisis management – a format where both sides can test whether their adversary’s commitments are genuine. The choice of Istanbul as a venue is symbolic: Turkey is a NATO member yet maintains a pragmatic relationship with the Taliban and deep defense ties with Pakistan. Ankara’s role as host lends the process a veneer of neutrality, while also allowing Western observers indirect visibility into the talks. For Qatar, sustaining this process is an extension of its broader post-Doha Agreement diplomacy – positioning itself as an indispensable interlocutor in an otherwise frozen regional landscape. 

The durability of this ceasefire will likely depend on four interlocking variables. First, whether the Taliban can deliver on its promise to curtail TTP operations on Afghan soil. This is the core of Islamabad’s grievance, and the principal metric by which the Pakistani military will judge Kabul’s sincerity. Second, whether Pakistan restrains its air and drone operations across the border, which have inflicted civilian casualties and deepened Afghan public resentment. Third, the establishment of a variable channel, possibly via Qatar or the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to investigate alleged violations before they spiral into new confrontations. And fourth, whether external stakeholders such as China, Iran, and the Gulf states lend their weight to stabilizing the process rather than pursuing unilateral interests.

This regional dimension of the truce is unavoidable. China’s economic stake in regional stability gives Beijing every incentive to press for a lasting calm, even as it quietly explores resource investment opportunities in Afghanistan. Qatar and Turkey, meanwhile, view their mediation roles as instruments of soft power – showcasing their diplomatic reach and capacity for pragmatic engagement with the Taliban. Iran’s proximity to the western frontier and Russia’s sponsorship of the ‘Moscow Format’ ensure that both will likely seek a seat at any future multilateral table addressing the Afghan-Pakistani impasse. In that sense, the Doha ceasefire is less a bilateral breakthrough than a regional holding action, designed to prevent a border conflict from destabilizing broader strategic investments.

Unfortunately, skepticism is warranted. Each previous attempt to de-escalate has collapsed under the combined weight of distrust, conflicting national narratives, and non-state spoilers. The Taliban continue to deny harboring anti-Pakistan militants, yet TTP attacks have risen by nearly fifty percent since early 2024, according to Pakistan’s Center for Research and Security Studies. For its part, Islamabad continues to treat Kabul’s denials as disingenuous, framing cross-border terrorism as state complicity rather than governance weakness. The result is a dialogue conducted under coercion, not confidence. In such conditions, ceasefires tend to freeze hostilities temporarily, rather than transform them permanently.

And yet, what alternative is there? Continued escalation carries far greater risks. Both states face economic fragility, humanitarian strain, and political volatility at home. For Pakistan, a prolonged conflict would strain already stretched military resources and jeopardize critical international financing. For the Taliban, another cycle of war would invite further isolation and embolden internal rivals who argue that confrontation with Pakistan is distracting the regime from its own legitimacy crisis. The Doha ceasefire, thus, offers an opportunity, however limited, to convert necessity into diplomacy. Whether it becomes a prelude to structured normalization or merely another short-lived pause depends less on the mediators than the two actors whose mutual mistrust has now reached historical depths. 

The cautious optimism expressed by Pakistani officials – that this is a “first step in the right direction” – is tempered by the Taliban’s insistence that the agreement does not constitute a joint declaration. This semantic divergence captures the essence of the problem: both sides seek to avoid appearing subordinate to the other, even as their fates remain intertwined. If the Istanbul follow up meetings produces a verifiable mechanism – perhaps joint liaison offices at key border crossings, or monitored communication channels, or a code of conduct for military operations – then the ceasefire may outlast the usual news cycle. But absent such architecture, it will only hold until the next suicide bombing, drone strike, or misinterpreted patrol movement resets the cycle of retaliation.

In that sense, the Doha truce is not an end, nor even the beginning of one yet. It is a pause, a necessary but fragile intermission in a border conflict decades in the making. Its success will be measured not by how long the quiet lasts, but by whether the two governments can build something institutional in its shadow: a process, however imperfect, that substitutes dialogue for violence.

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Sources Cited 

On the ISI–Taliban Nexus and Historical Context

• Brookings Institution (2023). Pakistan’s Enduring Ambivalence Toward the Taliban.

• U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Haqqani Network Profile.

• Ahmed Rashid (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale University Press.

• International Crisis Group (2018). Pakistan: The Militant Jihadist Challenge.

On the Durand Line and Border Politics

• Reuters (Dec. 2021). Taliban Forces Stop Pakistan from Erecting Border Fence Along Durand Line.

• Afghanistan Analysts Network (2024). The Fence and the Frontier: Afghanistan’s Position on the Durand Line Under the Taliban.

• National Geographic (2025). The Line That Never Healed: Pashtun Identity and the Durand Divide.

• Dawn (Feb. 2023). Skirmishes Erupt Over Pakistan’s Border Fencing Along the Durand Line.

On TTP Sanctuary and Security Deterioration

• Reuters (March 2024). Pakistan Launches Cross-Border Strikes on TTP Targets in Afghanistan.

• Al Jazeera (April 2025). Pakistan and Taliban Clash After Airstrikes on Border Regions.

• International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Strategic Comments (2024). Afghanistan and Pakistan: The TTP Problem Returns.

• U.S. Institute of Peace (2023). Afghanistan’s Taliban and Pakistan’s TTP: Intertwined Insurgencies.

• BBC Monitoring (2024). Timeline: Escalating Attacks Across the Afghanistan–Pakistan Border.

On Taliban Leadership and Internal Politics

• Brookings Institution (2024). Kandahar Ascendant: Power and Ideology in the Taliban’s Second Emirate.

• United Nations Security Council, Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (2024). Report on the Taliban and Associated Individuals and Entities.

• Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC Sentinel, 2023). The Taliban’s Post-Victory Struggles for Cohesion.

• The Diplomat (Aug. 2024). Hibatullah’s Shadow: How Kandahar Replaced Kabul as the Center of Taliban Power.

On Economic Relations, Trade, and Smuggling 

• Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (2024). Annual Foreign Trade Report 2023–2024.

• World Bank (2023). Afghanistan Development Update: Coping with External Constraints.

• Asian Development Bank (2024). Afghanistan and Pakistan: Border Trade and Informal Crossings.

• The Express Tribune (Oct. 2023). Pakistan’s Transit Trade Rules Target Afghan Smuggling Surge.

• Dawn (Feb. 2025). Afghan Transit Trade Volumes Fall 68% Amid New Restrictions.

• Reuters (Aug. 2024). Pakistan Imposes Curbs on Afghan Transit Goods Over Smuggling Concerns.

• Tolo News (Jan. 2025). Kandahar Traders Decry Pakistan’s Border Closures and Rising Tariffs.

• World Bank (2024). The Shadow Economy in South Asia: Informality, Smuggling, and Cross-Border Flows.

• Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment (ACCI, 2025). Impact Assessment of Border Closures on Afghan Trade and Revenue.

• International Crisis Group (2024). Border Economies and Conflict Dynamics in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

On Refugees, Deportations, and Humanitarian Implications

• Reuters (Oct. 2023). Pakistan Orders Expulsion of Undocumented Afghans.

• The Guardian (Nov. 2024). Deportations Deepen Rift Between Islamabad and Kabul.

• UNHCR (2024). Afghan Refugee Returns from Pakistan: Situation Report.

• Human Rights Watch (2024). Pakistan: Forced Returns Put Afghan Refugees at Risk.

On Current Military Clashes and Ceasefire Efforts

• Reuters (Oct. 2025). Heavy Clashes Between Taliban and Pakistani Forces Leave Dozens Dead.

• Al Jazeera (Oct. 2025). Pakistan, Taliban Agree to Temporary Ceasefire After Border Violence.

• The Guardian (Oct. 2025). “Friendship Gate” Destroyed as Border Fighting Intensifies.

• Dawn (Sept. 2025). Torkham and Chaman Crossings Reopen After Weeklong Closure.

On Regional and Geopolitical Context 

• Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2022–2024). Press Briefings on India’s Engagement with Afghanistan.

• The Hindu (June 2023). India Reopens Its Diplomatic Presence in Kabul.

• Observer Research Foundation (ORF, 2024). India’s Limited Engagement with the Taliban: Humanitarian Diplomacy or Strategic Signaling?

• South China Morning Post (2024). China’s Balancing Act: Protecting CPEC While Courting the Taliban.

• Xinhua News Agency (May 2024). China Hosts Trilateral Talks with Pakistan and Afghanistan on Counterterrorism Cooperation.

• Belt and Road Portal (2024). China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Project Update: Security and Investment Outlook.

• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS, 2024). China’s Afghanistan Calculus: Resources, Stability, and CPEC Connectivity.

• Iran’s Tasnim News Agency (2024). Tehran Holds Talks with Taliban on Border Security and Water Dispute.

• Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC, 2024). Moscow Format: Russia’s Return to Afghan Diplomacy.

• Gulf Times (2024). Qatar Mediates New Round of Pakistan–Taliban Border Talks.

• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2024). Regional Competition and Cooperation in Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan.

• BBC (July 2024). China, India, and Iran Vie for Influence as Pakistan–Taliban Relations Fray.

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