7 months ago
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When the Taliban recaptured Kabul successful August 2021, aft 2 decades of insurgency, Pakistan viewed it arsenic a tactical victory. Imran Khan, past Prime Minister, famously said the Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”. But the Taliban’s instrumentality emboldened the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is organisationally chiseled from, yet ideologically aligned with, the Afghan Taliban. Over 4 years, Pakistan, peculiarly the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa state bordering Afghanistan, has seen a melodramatic surge successful militant attacks. This twelvemonth alone, astatine slightest 2,414 radical were killed successful militancy-related unit successful Pakistan, according to an Islamabad-based deliberation tank. Pakistan blames the Afghan Taliban for sheltering the TTP, amended known arsenic the Pakistani Taliban, and tensions escalated into full-scale cross-border clashes. On October 9, 2025, portion Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was visiting India, Pakistan carried retired aerial strikes successful Kabul, seemingly targeting the TTP. These strikes triggered a week of cross-border attacks that near dozens dead, earlier a fragile Qatar-brokered ceasefire took effect.
When the Afghan Taliban were waging an insurgency, Pakistan offered them refuge and support. Pakistan’s subject constitution expected the Taliban to stay loyal erstwhile successful power. But erstwhile the Taliban took implicit the reins successful Afghanistan, the aged patron-client narration was replaced by state-to-state ties, with heavy structural contradictions. The Pakistani Taliban, which reason the merger of Pakistan’s tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, privation their mentation of a strict Islamic codification to beryllium enforced and request the merchandise of TTP prisoners, drew inspiration from the Afghan Taliban’s triumph. The Durand Line, the colonial-era border, re-emerged arsenic different flashpoint arsenic Kabul has ne'er recognised it. Besides, Pakistan’s determination to deport thousands of Afghan refugees strained ties further. What apt provoked the Pakistani constitution adjacent much was India’s diplomatic outreach to the Taliban. By carrying retired aerial strikes connected Kabul successful effect to militant attacks, Pakistan appears to beryllium mounting a caller precedent — holding Kabul straight accountable for cross-border militant attacks — successful a determination reminiscent of India’s doctrine of responding to coercion with overwhelming unit against Pakistan. Yet, the information situation successful Pakistan present engulfing its tribal areas is mostly of its ain making. For decades, it has followed a contradictory argumentation — warring coercion portion harbouring terrorist/militant groups that were warring its neighbouring countries. It backed the Taliban for implicit 2 decades, hoping that a Taliban-controlled Kabul would connection it strategical depth. That strategy has present backfired. If Pakistan believes that it tin reconstruct interior information by bombing Afghanistan, it is mistaken. Prolonged struggle and chaos volition lone deepen instability and fortify insurgency.
