Rising Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions will persist without degenerating into a full-scale war

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In February, Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab Lil-Haq, or Fury for the Sake of Justice, following a spike in cross-border militancy by Pakistan-centric militant groups operating from Afghanistan under the Taliban’s patronage. The Taliban’s repeated inaction and denial, despite irrefutable evidence of sheltering, arming, and financing Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), left Pakistan with no choice but to target the infrastructure of militant networks and their enablers. Though Qatar and Turkiye brokered a tenuous ceasefire between the two sides in October 2025, tensions had been gradually building, and something had to give.

Pakistan’s current aggressive posture toward the Taliban is preceded by four years of diplomatic efforts to convince the clerical regime to ensure that Afghanistan’s soil is not used for militancy against other countries, as enshrined in the Doha Agreement of 2020. While the Taliban deny supporting the TTP and other Pakistani militant networks, their refusal to sign a written agreement during Turkish-, Qatari-, and Saudi-mediated talks belies these claims. Furthermore, their insistence on offering only verbal assurances to address Pakistan’s security concerns highlights their ideological and ethnic links with the TTP and similar groups. The Taliban are now signaling a willingness to reinitiate talks on the TTP from scratch, but Pakistan has made it clear that any future negotiations will revolve around the five-point framework discussed in previous rounds. At the same time, Islamabad has ruled out any immediate ceasefire or........

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