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 negotiations until the Taliban take demonstrable steps to address Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns.

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan hoped to secure their cooperation in addressing anti-Pakistan militancy, which had largely been rooted in the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban’s ouster from power, and the US-Pakistan counterterrorism alliance. However, Pakistan’s conventional thinking overlooked the evolving agendas of the TTP and other groups, which felt rejuvenated by the Taliban’s victory. This victory acted as an ideological force multiplier for militant groups seeking to transform Pakistan into a Taliban-style theocracy through armed insurgency. Moreover, Pakistan overestimated the Taliban’s willingness to act as a rational state actor rather than an ideologically driven insurgency, while underestimating their battlefield camaraderie, ideological affinity, and ethnic alignment with the TTP. As a result, militancy escalated in Pakistan as patience wore thin in the face of Taliban inaction.

Islamabad has effectively placed the burden on Kabul to choose between peace and militancy. Abdul Basit Khan

Islamabad has effectively placed the burden on Kabul to choose between peace and militancy.

By refusing immediate talks and expanding the scope of its airstrikes in Afghanistan— from targeting Pakistani militant networks to also striking Taliban military installations, border posts, and ammunition depots— Pakistan is signaling resolve. In the language of deterrence, Islamabad is imposing punitive costs on the Taliban for hosting and sheltering the TTP. In doing so, Pakistan seeks to alter the Taliban’s strategic calculus: cooperation would be incentivized through the reopening of borders, resumption of economic activity, and a halt to airstrikes, while continued non-cooperation would lead to further escalation. However, the Taliban continue to think like an insurgent movement rather than a nation-state, limiting the effectiveness of Pakistan’s coercive strategy.

Nonetheless, weary of repeatedly bearing the human cost of conflict, Pakistan’s decision to take the fight into Afghanistan and impose reciprocal costs on the Taliban is well thought out and carefully calculated. In fact, Islamabad has effectively placed the burden on Kabul to choose between peace and militancy. Pakistani airstrikes are also likely to divert the Taliban’s attention from supporting cross-border militancy to defending their own positions within Afghanistan. In essence, Pakistan is shifting from a reactive posture— absorbing attacks and issuing condemnations— to a more proactive strategy that carries the conflict onto Afghan soil.

The Taliban’s denial of arming, financing, and enabling militant networks under their umbrella rings hollow in light of multiple UN reports suggesting otherwise. These reports warn that Afghanistan is once again becoming a hub of militancy, with potentially far-reaching consequences for regional and global security. The latest findings indicate that between 20 and 23 armed groups of varying ideologies are active in Afghanistan, benefiting from the permissive environment provided by the Taliban. The killing of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in a US drone strike in central Kabul in 2022 is a classic example of the Taliban’s denial strategy. The regime has yet to acknowledge his presence or explain how he was residing in a Taliban-linked safe house in the capital.

So far, the Taliban have defied Pakistani pressure and signaled their willingness to fight back. In a recent interview, Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Yaqub stated that the regime is prepared to continue the conflict even if it lasts ten years. He also refused to label the TTP a militant group, describing such claims as “imaginary and unrealistic.” While this stance reinforces Pakistan’s assertion that the Taliban patronize the group, his defiant tone reflects the movement’s experience in waging prolonged asymmetric warfare against the United States. The Taliban remain battle-hardened and capable of sustaining guerrilla warfare against a conventionally superior adversary over an extended period.

Since Pakistan expanded its airstrikes in February and the Taliban responded in kind, both sides’ positions have hardened. Earlier this month, Kabul said more than 400 people were killed in a Pakistani air strike ​on a drug rehabilitation center in the Afghan capital before the ​neighbors suspended fighting for Eid-ul-Fitr. Pakistan maintains the target was militant infrastructure. The operation has since then resumed and domestic pressures as well as ideological commitments make de-escalation difficult. At the same time, however, the current level of escalation is unlikely to escalate into a full-scale war. Instead, prolonged cycles of recurring tensions appear inevitable, punctuated by intermittent regional diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing major escalation.

-The author is a Senior Associate Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. X: @basitresearcher

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