The following blog was written by Talha Madni, a candidate in the Kroc School's MA in Peace & Justice program.
On 15 August 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Kabul after a long struggle of nearly two decades against the United States (US). Islamabad was jubilant over the Taliban victory and a friendly regime in Kabul; however, this euphoria was short-lived. Since 2021 the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan emanating from Afghanistan has increased, deteriorating the relations between Kabul and Islamabad. Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of providing havens to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a terrorist organization waging war against Pakistan. However, Kabul rejects such allegations. Despite using kinetic and non-kinetic means to dissuade the Taliban from their alleged support of TTP, Islamabad has been unable to influence Kabul. Apparently, Pakistan’s policy options to influence the Afghan Taliban are limited, and the current trajectory suggests that both countries are headed south in their relations.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989, Afghanistan plunged into a violent civil war. Several militant factions, previously united as Mujahideen, started fighting against each other for control over Kabul. In such a milieu, a new movement comprising young students from Islamic seminaries calling themselves Taliban, literally meaning students, emerged in 1994. Within two years, this movement overpowered most militias and gained control of Kabul.
Between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, except Panjshir Valley, with an iron fist. The country was a sanctuary for transnational terrorists, particularly for al-Qaeda militants. However, events took a turn for Afghanistan when al-Qaeda terrorists carried out one of the deadliest attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, killing roughly 3,000 people. The U.S. government blamed al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, for perpetrating the 9/11 attack which was in Afghanistan and hosted by the Afghan Taliban at that time.
Figure 1: Map of Afghanistan in 2001
President Bush demanded Kabul turn over Osama to the US. Taliban defied the US ultimatum, requiring evidence of Osama’s guilt and offering to hand over Osama to a Muslim country for a trial. However, President Bush did not want anything less than unconditional surrender. This way, the US “war on terror” started in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, with a bombing campaign against the Taliban. In November 2001, Kabul fell to the US-backed Afghan Northern Alliance, and the Taliban retreated.
It is important to mention that repeated efforts by the Taliban to engage and negotiate with the US after the fall of Kabul in 2001 fell on deaf ears. Islamabad also attempted to persuade the US government to engage with the Afghan Taliban, but the US leadership remained unwilling to do so. Instead, the US and its allies installed Hamid Karzai as the Afghan president in December 2001. In the years to come, the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan increased to a height of 130,000 soldiers.
However, after spending nearly $2.313 trillion on the war in Afghanistan and losing almost 7,000 soldiers, not to mention 170,000 Afghan and 67,000 Pakistani lives lost, in over two decades of war on terror, the US decided to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan. In August 2021, the US forces left Afghanistan after the Doha Agreement with the Afghan Taliban in 2020. With the withdrawal of the US, the Afghan regime also crumbled, and the last president of the country, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country– effectively leaving the city of Kabul to be overrun by the Taliban forces who entered the city as a victor on 15 August 2021.
Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban relations date back to the 1990s since the formation of the group. Between 1996 and 2001, Islamabad extended diplomatic and material support to the Taliban. In fact, it was among the only three countries, others being Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. However, events took a turn after 9/11. Pakistan became a frontline state against the US war on terror in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, Islamabad maintained a soft approach towards the Afghan Taliban. Even immediately after 9/11, President Musharraf sent his spymaster General Mahmud to persuade Mullah Omar to hand over Osama to the US and save Afghanistan from destruction. Similarly, it is widely believed that the Afghan Taliban leadership found safe havens in Pakistan after the US invasion of Afghanistan. The senior leadership of the Afghan Taliban, including Mullah Omar, relocated to Pakistan, where they reorganized their efforts against the US and Afghan government.
It is important to understand that Pakistan’s conciliatory approach towards the Taliban was not ideological but driven by its own security considerations. Since its independence, Islamabad had sought a friendly regime in Kabul that would not support Pashtun ethnic nationalist movements and make irredentist claims on its territory. In the Taliban, Islamabad found a regime that was not as assertive as the previous ones, especially like Daoud Khan’s.
Islamabad was, therefore, jubilant over the end of the war in Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban. It was also hopeful for friendly relations with Kabul and stability and prosperity for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the Islamabad-Kabul honeymoon lasted only a few days. Both the countries have been drifting away from each other, as the contention over border dispute and Afghan support for the TTP have intensified.
Islamabad and Kabul have fundamentally different perspectives on boundary demarcation. While Pakistan recognizes the boundaries it inherited from the British Raj as an international border, Afghanistan contests the status of 2,640 kilometers Durand Line separating the two countries.
Map 2: Afghanistan-Pakistan border
However, the elephant in the room remains the alleged Taliban support for the TTP– a sanctioned organization formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud against Pakistan’s support for the US in its fight against the Afghan Taliban. In its war against Pakistan, TTP has conducted at least 4,657 terrorist attacks in Pakistan between 2007 and 2023. TTP has been involved in some of the most gruesome attacks in Pakistan, including the deadly attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on 16 December 2014 which left more than 148 dead, most of them children. It demands the adoption of Shariah in Pakistan.
Graph 1: Number of TTP attacks in Pakistan over years (Source: Uppsala Conflict Database)
In response, Pakistan launched military operation Zarb-e-Azb, which broke the back of TTP and forced the militants into hiding in Afghanistan. Between 2015 and 2021, the number of TTP attacks drastically decreased; however, with the return of the Afghan Taliban, terrorist activities of TTP have also intensified.
Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of harboring TTP and providing material support to them. In fact, the United Nations report in 2024 also identified that the “bonds are close” between TTP and the Afghan Taliban. It also unearthed that Kabul provides $50,500 every month to the current leader of the TTP, Mufti Nur Wali Mehsud. Similarly, Afghanistan has armed TTP with North Atlantic Treaty Organization caliber weapons, significantly enhancing its capabilities.
TTP leadership also claims that it is a “branch of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and is part of that umbrella” in Pakistan. Mehsud has repeatedly pledged his allegiance to the Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada. Some senior members of the Taliban have also acknowledged that TTP members are living in Afghanistan as their “guests”. However, Kabul downplays these claims by distancing itself from TTP. In its defense, the Taliban has also banned the fighters from Jihad in Pakistan.
Recognizing the gravity of the issue, Pakistan and Afghanistan have deliberated over TTP multiple times. In public while refuting Pakistan’s allegation and urging Islamabad not to blame Kabul for its insecurity, the Taliban concede that TTP is a problem in closed-door meetings. They have also offered a mediatory role between TTP and Islamabad. In 2022, the Taliban reportedly proposed settling TTP fighters in Afghanistan in exchange for $35 million from Pakistan. However, the Taliban have denied these reports.
Pakistan, on its part, has used kinetic and non-kinetic means to influence the Taliban leadership to stop supporting TTP. For instance, in 2023, Islamabad forcefully repatriated more than 800,000 Afghan refugees to pressure Kabul to change its course. Similarly, Pakistan has used the leverage of suspending Afghan transit trade, as Afghanistan depends primarily on Pakistan for its trade. In December 2024, Pakistan carried out aerial strikes in Paktika province. Though the strikes were targeted against TTP training camps, they left nearly 71 people dead, including women and children. Pakistan has used such tactics previously in March 2024 and June 2022. However, Pakistan has neither been able to persuade nor able to coerce the Taliban to change its course, meaning Pakistan has limited leverage over Afghan leadership.
Kabul fears that TTP may turn against them by allying with the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) if it adopts an aggressive stance towards them. ISKP remains a sworn enemy of the Taliban. Recently, it also claimed killing a Taliban senior minister, Khalil Haqqani, in a suicide bombing. Therefore, Kabul believes that pressurizing TTP would aggravate its own security challenges, as extremist elements within may likely join ISKP if pushed for unconditional surrender.
The current path adopted by both capitals demonstrates that they are headed for a collision in the future which will be mutually hurting. On its part, Islamabad needs to realize that an aggressive policy towards the Taliban would harm its own interests. It will alienate Kabul and escalate the tensions over its western border in addition to an always tense eastern border with India– a situation Pakistan cannot afford. Similarly, excessive force would, in addition to drawing Pakistan into a conflict with the Afghan Taliban, strengthen the vicious ISKP. An Afghanistan in chaos or under ISKP would not be in favor of Pakistan.
For peace within the country and with Afghanistan, Pakistan must work with the Taliban while addressing its internal challenges. Pakistan must engage in sustained diplomatic efforts with the Taliban government, using border management, and intelligence-sharing to address mutual security concerns. While coercive measures like trade restrictions or refugee expulsions may provide short-term leverage, long-term stability requires a balanced approach that prioritizes dialogue over confrontation
Moreover, Islamabad must devise a coherent counterterrorism strategy towards TTP. Its policy of military operations against TTP and then settling 30,000 to 40,000 TTP fighters in the country is not only confusing but also self-defeating. Furthermore, Pakistan intelligence agencies need to rise up to the occasion by devising plans to eliminate TTP leadership. In this regard, lessons from Israel’s Mossad may be drawn. However, any kinetic counterterrorism means would fall short of delivering meaningful results, if the underlying reasons for the support of TTP are not addressed.
Likewise, Kabul must also understand the legitimate security needs of Pakistan. It must reduce its chronic dependence on TTP for governing the country. Such kind of dependence on transnational terrorist organizations not only goes against its Doha Agreement commitments but also were the same reasons that brought the war on terror to Afghanistan.
In conclusion, Pakistan’s initial optimism following the Taliban’s return to power has given way to heightened security concerns and deteriorating relations with Kabul. The Afghan Taliban’s alleged support for TTP has exacerbated Pakistan’s internal security challenges, while Islamabad’s attempts to coerce or persuade Kabul have yielded little success. An aggressive approach risks further instability and unintended consequences, including strengthening ISKP. Instead, Pakistan must adopt a pragmatic, long-term counterterrorism strategy that balances military, diplomatic, and intelligence efforts. Sustainable peace will require careful navigation of regional dynamics, ensuring that both Pakistan and Afghanistan do not descend into deeper conflict.