South Asia’s next potential pressure point may lie not along the Line of Control in Kashmir, but westward, along the volatile Afghanistan–Pakistan border. This frontier is quickly emerging as a central driver of regional instability.

As expert Michael Kugelman recently noted, an underreported conflict is gaining momentum between Pakistan authorities in Islamabad and the Taliban government in Kabul. It is centered on Pakistan’s claims that Kabul tolerates, if not outright supports, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants operating against Islamabad. This confrontation now risks even eclipsing the traditional India–Pakistan rivalry as the region’s most explosive security dilemma.

The data is telling. Terrorist violence inside Pakistan did surge in 2025, with hundreds of attacks attributed to the TTP, many launched from Afghan territory. The Pakistani authorities in Islamabad responded with airstrikes and border closures (among other measures). This in turn has triggered Taliban retaliation, population displacement, and escalating rhetoric. Neither side currently has incentives to de-escalate: Pakistan’s military feels betrayed by the Afghan Taliban, a movement it once sponsored, now accused of tolerating or even aiding the TTP’s campaign against Islamabad; the Afghan Taliban, meanwhile, gains domestic legitimacy precisely by defying Pakistan, a country widely resented by the Afghan public.

There are many factors fueling anti-Pakistan feeling in Afghanistan today, including the unresolved Durand Line dispute and Pakistan’s long involvement in Afghan conflicts. Islamabad is widely seen in Afghanistan as having manipulated Afghan factions over decades, by........

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