- Cross-border strikes and rising militant attacks in 2026 have turned long-standing tensions between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan into a major regional security crisis.
- Pakistan’s decades-long support for Taliban and militant proxies has contributed to today’s instability, with groups like the TTP now targeting the Pakistani state.
- Islamabad expected the Taliban government to curb anti-Pakistan militants, but instead TTP attacks increased while Pakistani airstrikes failed to produce decisive results.
- Insurgency in Balochistan, political repression, and persistent ties to militant networks continue to undermine Pakistan’s security narrative and complicate its confrontation with Afghanistan.
The escalating conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2026 represents one of the most consequential security crises in South Asia since the end of the War on Terror. Cross-border airstrikes, artillery exchanges, and rising militant attacks have transformed what was once a tense but manageable relationship into a volatile confrontation. Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of harbouring the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the militant group responsible for a wave of attacks inside Pakistan. Islamabad has increasingly responded with airstrikes and cross-border operations inside Afghanistan, claiming the right to target militants operating from Afghan soil.
Yet framing the crisis purely as a counterterrorism dispute obscures a more fundamental reality. The current conflict is not simply the result of Taliban intransigence or Afghan instability. Rather, it is the culmination of decades of Pakistani policy that nurtured, protected, and legitimised the very militant ecosystem that now threatens it. In many ways, Pakistan is confronting the consequences of a strategy it pursued for more than thirty years. The present confrontation is therefore less an external crisis than a paradox of Pakistan’s own making, a literal definition of the Frankenstein’s monster created through its long-standing support for militant proxies in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s Long Patronage of the Taliban
Pakistan’s relationship with the Taliban stretches back to the movement’s emergence in the mid-1990s. Islamabad saw the Taliban as a means of securing influence in Afghanistan and ensuring a friendly government in Kabul that would deny strategic space to India. During the Taliban’s first period of rule from 1996 to 2001, Pakistan was one of the few states to recognise the regime diplomatically.
After the Taliban were ousted following the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, Pakistan’s role became more complex but no less significant. Throughout the War on Terror, Taliban leaders found sanctuary in Pakistan. Senior leadership councils operated from Pakistani cities, while insurgent networks moved across the border with relative ease. Numerous analysts, Western officials, and Afghan governments accused Pakistan’s security establishment of maintaining ties with Taliban factions while simultaneously presenting itself as a partner in the fight against terrorism.
When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 after the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government, many figures within Pakistan’s political and security establishment openly welcomed the development. Then-Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan spoke of Afghans ‘breaking the shackles of slavery,’ while others in Pakistan portrayed the Taliban’s victory as a strategic success for Islamabad after two decades of conflict.
At the time, Pakistan appeared to believe that a Taliban government in Kabul would be cooperative and responsive to Pakistani geostrategic priorities. The assumption was that the Taliban, indebted to Pakistan for years of sanctuary and assistance, would help suppress anti-Pakistan militants such as the TTP.
The ‘Post-American Afghanistan’ Miscalculation
The single biggest miscalculation underpinning Pakistan’s strategy was the belief that a Taliban government would behave like a traditional client state once the United States withdrew. From the Taliban’s perspective, the TTP were not merely militants but tribal brethren who had fought parallel battles against state authority. While the Afghan Taliban have occasionally attempted to mediate between Pakistan and the TTP, there were concerns over the Pakistani military’s repressive strategy towards Pashtuns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As TTP attacks inside Pakistan have increased since 2021, Islamabad has turned increasingly to military force. Pakistani airstrikestargeting suspected militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan have become more frequent, marking a significant escalation in the conflict. These operations have generated significant controversy due to civilian casualties and contributed to rising anti-Pakistan sentiment within Afghanistan.
More importantly, the airstrikes have not fundamentally altered the strategic balance. The Taliban remain firmly in control of Afghanistan, and the TTP has continued to carry out attacks inside Pakistan. In practical terms, Pakistan’s military response has inflicted humanitarian costs without achieving decisive strategic results.
Balochistan, Internal Repression, and the Limits of Pakistan’s Narrative
Pakistan has also sought to broaden its accusations against the Afghan Taliban by claiming that Kabul is enabling the presence of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). Yet this framing ignores a deeper and far more consequential reality. The insurgency in Balochistan is rooted primarily in Pakistan’s own internal policies and long-standing repression of Baloch political activism.
One of the most prominent recent examples is the detention of Baloch human rights activist Dr. Mahrang Baloch, leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, who had been repeatedly detained across 2025 following a crackdown on protests against enforced disappearances. Baloch activists and international human rights organisations have condemned the detention as arbitrary and politically motivated, arguing that it reflects a broader pattern in which peaceful advocacy is treated as a security threat.
The situation in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has significant geopolitical consequences central to China’s investments in Pakistan, particularly the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Persistent insecurity and attacks on Chinese workers have increasingly alarmed Beijing. Chinese officials were assured by Islamabad in 2021 that a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan would stabilise Pakistan’s western frontier. Instead, the opposite has occurred.
A State Facing Internal and External Scrutiny
The paradox facing Pakistan today is compounded by concerns about its own political trajectory. The country’s hybrid political system, where the civilian government of Shehbaz Sharif coexists with significant military influence, has seen civil rights deteriorateinside the country. Imran Khan, once one of the country’s most prominent political figures, was removed from power under controversial circumstances when he resisted the military’s dominance over Pakistan’s affairs, and remains imprisoned, with his health suffering.
At the same time, Pakistan has faced renewed criticism for maintaining ties with terrorist organisations such as Jaish-e-Mohammed(JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and enabling other extremist groups like the Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP). Leaders associated with these groups have periodically appeared in public despite international sanctions, reinforcing longstanding accusations that militant proxies remain embedded within Pakistan’s strategic thinking.
Concerns are also resurfacing regarding Pakistan’s relationship with militant networks more broadly. Pakistan was removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ‘grey list’ in 2022 after pledging to curb terrorist financing. Yet Pakistan’s opaque ties to various terrorist organisations remain unresolved, especially after the conflict with India in 2025 following the Pahalgam terrorist attack.
Taken together, these dynamics highlight a recurring contradiction in Pakistan’s security narrative. While Islamabad increasingly portrays external actors, particularly the Afghan Taliban, as responsible for rising militancy, the drivers of instability within Pakistan itself remain deeply tied to unresolved political grievances and the state’s own security policies.
More recently, Pakistan has also been accused of engaging in transnational repression against critics and dissidents abroad, including in the United Kingdom and the United States. Such allegations have contributed to a growing perception that Pakistan’s internal political dynamics are increasingly affecting its international relationships.
A Paradox of Pakistan’s Own Making
Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s appeals for international pressure on the Taliban appear somewhat disingenuous. Islamabad now warns of the dangers posed by militant groups operating from Afghan territory, yet these warnings come from a state that spent decades cultivating relationships with many of the same networks.
The Taliban’s return to power was not an unforeseen accident but the outcome of a long conflict in which Pakistan played a central role. To present the Taliban solely as an external threat ignores the historical context that helped bring them to power.
The 2026 confrontation between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is therefore more than a border dispute or a counterterrorism crisis. It is the manifestation of a deeper strategic paradox.
In confronting the Taliban, Pakistan is ultimately facing the long shadow of its own strategic decisions. It cannot escape the paradox that the instability it now seeks to contain is, in many respects, the product of policies it once pursued with confidence.
