For years, Pakistan nurtured the Taliban who now govern Afghanistan. Now they’re at war.
Pakistan steps up its war against Afghanistan
When Pakistan attacked Bagram airbase outside Kabul on Sunday, it marked an escalation of its war against Afghanistan and the Taliban administration that has been in place since the United States’s hurried withdrawal in 2021.
Pakistan’s defence minister said last week that his country is now in “open war” with Afghanistan over Kabul’s failure to prevent cross-border attacks by militants based in its territory.
The militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is distinct from the Afghan Taliban but Islamabad claims that the Afghans have either facilitated or turned a blind eye to its activities. TTP attacks in Pakistan have increased since the Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021, and there has been a surge in its activity since the start of this year.
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The attacks, mostly on security forces but also on urban centres and religious sites have put Pakistan’s government under political pressure to act. Over the past few months, Pakistan has closed its border with Afghanistan a number of times, suspended trade and deported large numbers of Afghan citizens, among them journalists and rights activists who fled the Taliban.
As Pakistani forces struck at what they said were militant bases inside Afghanistan in recent weeks, Afghan Taliban forces retaliated with strikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan’s attack on Bagram airbase is part of an escalation that has seen its forces openly target Afghan government facilities rather than militants.
Afghan forces are no match for the Pakistani military in terms of equipment and firepower but after fighting the United States and Nato for 20 years, Taliban fighters are experienced in asymmetric warfare. Both sides have reasons to escalate, with the Taliban eager to assert its sovereignty while Pakistan is worried about India’s influence in Afghanistan.
The two sides agreed a ceasefire last October following mediation by Qatar and Turkey, and China has also sought to broker an end to the conflict. But with international attention focused on the US war against neighbouring Iran, there is no immediate sign of de-escalation in the confrontation between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
At the same time, domestic political constraints mean that neither Kabul nor Islamabad can afford to escalate the conflict into a full-scale war. Afghanistan’s forces are not set up for an extended war against another state and Pakistan is facing a likely economic hit from the fallout of the Iran war as rising oil prices fuel inflation, which is already high at 7 per cent.
An optimistic scenario would see a renewed effort at external mediation produce a temporary ceasefire and a restoration of diplomatic communication between Islamabad and Kabul. The risk is that Pakistan’s heavy-handed actions have driven the Afghan Taliban closer to the TTP and fuelled resentment against Islamabad among the border communities it is hoping to pacify.
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