According to Khwaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan’s Minister for Defence, “open war” has broken out between the neighbouring South Asian nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan came under Taliban control in August 2021, and tensions between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have been simmering ever since, with periodic outbreaks of violence. The Pakistani authorities have alleged that Afghanistan is providing a base for several armed terrorist groups responsible for attacks on Pakistan’s territory. The groups said to be responsible include the Pakistani Taliban ((Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan; TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and the ISKP (Islamic State Khorasan Province), an ISIL (ISIS) affiliate. Afghanistan, on the other hand, denies harbouring terrorists on its soil. The TTP, a militant jihadist outfit, was founded in December 2007. It claims to be independent of, but appears to be closely allied with, the Afghan Taliban. The TTP hopes to impose Sharia law in Pakistan and to reverse the merger of the former Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north-west of the country. Pakistan refers to the TTP as “India-sponsored Fitna-al-Khawarij”, deeming the group as a band of heretics through this designation, and claims that India also backs the BLA, despite Indian contentions to the contrary.
The deadliest clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan up until now took place in October 2025. On 9 October, Pakistan targeted the Taliban in Operation Khyber Storm. The Pakistan Air Force undertook ‘precision strikes’ on military targets (military posts; ammunitions depots) and TTP “hideouts” in the capital city of Kabul and in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province. The Afghan Taliban retaliated to this violation of Afghan airspace with attacks on Pakistani military border outposts. Intermittent fighting ended after Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on 19 October, following crisis talks in Doha, Qatar. The ceasefire has proven to be somewhat. Things came to a head on 6 February 2026, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device during Friday midday prayers at a Shia mosque in Islamabad, killing 31 and injuring more than 160 others.
Pakistan then launched Operation Ghazab lil Haq (“Righteous Fury”), a series of artillery and air strikes, during the early hours of 27 February 2026, in response to continued attacks by the Taliban on border outposts along the 1,622-mile-long Durand Line between the two countries.
The contested border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the focus of cross-border attacks, is a colonial legacy which dates back to an 1893 treaty. The Durand Line Agreement was signed by Colonel Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, on 12 November 1893. The Durand Line, recognised by Pakistan as an international border since its independence, was rejected as a boundary by Afghanistan following the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan war can be considered an asymmetrical conflict. The Afghan Taliban lacks significant airpower and its disciplined, resilient, and tenacious fighters rely on the tactics of guerrilla warfare, including hit-and-run attacks, on Soviet-era arms and the stockpile of US arms and armoured vehicles left behind after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, and on drone attacks. Taliban forces benefit from their familiarity with the hostile mountainous terrain along the Afghan border. The Taliban’ s military firepower is, however, no direct match for well-equipped Pakistani armed forces, fully trained for conventional warfare.
India has exploited the breakdown of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, upgrading its technical mission in Kabul to a full-fledged embassy and strengthening bilateral ties with the Afghan government. India also alleges that Pakistan is itself hosting militant terrorists, just as it sets out to eliminate the forces of terror from Afghan soil. The US, on the other hand, has supported Pakistan’s actions, on the basis of self-defence against Taliban attacks, while ruling out any military intervention in the conflict. In this context, it must be noted that Russia, which became the first country in the world to officially recognise the Taliban government of the Islamic Emirate in July 2025, is calling for de-escalation of the conflict. The UN, the EU, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye concur, along with other nations, on the desirability of a mediated settlement.
Hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan meanwhile continue, with angry rhetoric, mutual recriminations, and unverifiable assertions from both sides. Animosities have even affected sporting links between the countries, following the deaths of three Afghan cricket players in a Pakistani airstrike in October 2025. The endgame is far from clear, as Pakistan has adopted an uncompromising stance, demanding an unqualified end to terrorism on Afghan soil. We are someway yet from a peaceful resolution, always the best option in these circumstances.
Ashis Banerjee