Breakout of Pak-Afghan hostilities risks turning 'open war' into long crisis

Analysts warn Taliban may boost TTP, BLA support, risking wider conflict in Pakistan

Weeks after the Taliban's lightning 2021 takeover of Afghanistan from a US-led coalition, Pakistan's then spy chief visited Kabul and told a reporter: "Don't worry, everything will be okay."

Five years later, Islamabad — once seen as a Taliban patron — is engaged in its heaviest fighting with the extremist group, which Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif has described as an "open war".

The turmoil places a broad stretch of Asia — from the Gulf to the Himalayas — in flux, with the United States building up forces near Iran even as tensions between Pakistan and arch rival India remain high after clashes last May.

At the heart of the conflict with Afghanistan is Pakistan's accusation that the Afghan Taliban provide support to militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that have wreaked havoc across the country.

The Afghan Taliban, which had previously fought alongside the TTP, deny the charge, insisting that Pakistan's security situation is its internal problem.

The disagreement is a reflection of starkly incompatible positions taken by both sides, as Pakistan expected compliance after decades of support to the Taliban, which did not see itself beholden to Islamabad, analysts said.

"Neither side had an honest conversation about what the relationship would actually look like. That structural misunderstanding is the seed of everything that followed," said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh and an Afghanistan expert.

Although tensions have simmered along their rugged 2,600-kilometre frontier for months, following clashes last October, Friday's fighting is notable because of Pakistan's use of warplanes to hit Taliban military installations instead of confining the attacks to the militants it allegedly harbours.

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These include targets deep inside the country in Kabul, as well as the southern city of Kandahar, the seat of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, according to military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry.

The clashes are unlikely to end there.

"We are in uncharted territory," said Abdul Basit,  an expert on militancy and violent extremism at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"What we are witnessing is a recipe for instability, as a result of which there will be more violence, there will be more tensions. And terrorist groups will gain strength by exploiting the chaos."

'A nightmare scenario' for Pakistan

Pakistan has a formidable military of 660,000 active personnel, backed by a fleet of 465 combat aircraft, several thousand armoured fighting vehicles and artillery pieces.

Across the border, the Afghan Taliban have only around 172,000 active military personnel, a smattering of armoured vehicles and no real air force.

But the battle-hardened group, which took on a phalanx of Western military powers in 2001 and outlasted them, has the option to lean on insurgents such as the TTP and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), moving beyond border skirmishes.

"So either the Taliban can basically take a step back from the brink, or they can step forward and continue fighting at the borderland, but also increase support for TTP, BLA, and all the other groups to operate inside Pakistan," said Avinash Paliwal, reader in international relations at SOAS University of London.

The BLA has been at the centre of a decades-long insurgency, which in recent years has staged large coordinated attacks.

Pakistan has long accused India of backing the insurgents, a charge repeatedly denied by New Delhi, which has retained a robust military deployment along the border since last May.

"A two-front situation has long been a nightmare scenario for Pakistan," said former Pakistan diplomat Maleeha Lodhi.

"For Pakistan, a prolonged breakdown in relations [with Afghanistan] compounds its security challenge, given the unstable situation on the eastern frontier with India."

Although a raft of countries with influence, including China, Russia, Turkiye and Qatar, have indicated an openness to help mediate the conflict, all such efforts have been met with limited success so far.

"The challenge for now is that there's a huge gap between the expectations of the two sides," said Ibraheem Bahiss, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group focusing on Afghanistan.

"We need to somehow bridge that to come to a more realistic compromise that's both doable and digestible for both sides."