The rebounding of Pakistan’s Afghan strategy Premium

Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to be locked in a dangerous stalemate

On December 27, 2024, the Director-General of Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that 383 officers and soldiers in the Pakistani security forces had lost their lives in counter-terrorism operations during 2024. He also claimed that 925 terrorists and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists had been eliminated in approximately 60,000 intelligence-based operations. Giving a detailed account of Pakistan’s generosity towards Afghanistan, he nonetheless asserted that Pakistan would not allow its citizens to be targeted by the TTP, which is alleged to enjoy safe haven in Afghanistan. It is, however, ironic given that Pakistan has itself, for long, provided logistical, military and moral support to the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network, the two formerly insurgent-cum-terrorist groups now leading the outcaste regime in Kabul, during their fight against the West-backed Afghan government and American security forces.

Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan Muhammad Sadiq Khan had visited Kabul in December 2024, where he had held parleys with top-ranking Taliban leaders to de-escalate the tensions between two countries. But this is likely to be a diplomatic failure as it was during his stay in Kabul that the Pakistan Air Force conducted air strikes against alleged TTP targets in eastern Paktika province on December 24. The Afghan authorities claimed that 46 people were killed in the air strikes which were apparently in response to the TTP’s attack, on December 21, on a security post in South Waziristan, killing 16 Pakistani soldiers.

The two countries seem to be locked in a dangerous stalemate. On December 28, Afghanistan’s so-called Ministry of Defence claimed attacks on multiple locations inside Pakistan in retaliation for the air strikes. Interestingly, the ministry did not mention the fact that Pakistan’s territory was targeted, but, instead, chose to highlight that the strikes were executed beyond the ‘hypothetical line’ — a term used by the Afghan government to refer to the Durand Line. These incidents serve to highlight the limits of Pakistan’s ability to exercise its influence over its former proxy by virtue of either coercive methods or diplomatic persuasion.

Pakistan’s Afghan strategy has now become a victim of its own success. Instead of evolving as a “strategic depth” for Pakistan, the return of the Taliban has made Afghanistan a “strategic ditch” for Pakistan’s security establishment, which seems to be getting deeper and deeper with no sight of escape. The tit-for-tat killing frenzy has dangerous implications as Pakistan’s already tense relationship with Afghanistan has plunged into a deep crisis.

Pakistan has been facing significant challenges from the TTP which shares many ideological affinities with the Afghan Taliban, leading to a growing perception that both constitute the sides of the same coin. Against a backdrop of inflamed passions and growing suspicion, Pakistan has been under constant public pressure to demonstrate retaliatory action. But nothing could be more ironic and ridiculous than the entreaties from a section of the Pakistani government to Washington to come to its rescue. In response to the deadly attack on a military camp in Pakistan in December 2023, claimed by the Tehreek-i-Jihad Pakistan (TJP), Balochistan’s caretaker Information Minister, Jan Achakzai, suggested the Pakistan government propose offering U.S. “drone bases to target militant sanctuaries in Afghanistan”. Other measures included “special targeted operations, air strikes, border closure with Afghanistan, return of Afghan refugees, anti-TTA [Tehrik-e-Taliban Afghanistan] political opposition gathering in Islamabad.” However, Mr. Achakzai later deleted this controversial tweet. When Pakistan’s Army chief, General Asim Munir, had callously asserted in January 2024 that, “When it comes to the safety and security of every single Pakistani, the whole of Afghanistan can be damned”, it merely fed the narrative that Pakistan’s security establishment is largely ignorant of the subtleties required to persuade the Afghan Taliban by means other than firepower. It is another matter that in a conciliatory tone afterwards, Gen. Munir pleaded with Afghan rulers not to prioritise the TTP “over their long-standing and benevolent brother Islamic country”.

When it comes to Afghanistan’s messy political dynamics, Pakistan’s ruling elite has been living in a fantasy land, ignoring Afghanistan’s notoriety as a ‘graveyard of empires’. Instead of trying to extract Pakistan from the Afghan conflict after 9/11, Rawalpindi overstretched its involvement, chasing a wild dream of unbreakable Pakistan-Afghan alliance against India. An explosion was bound to happen, but Pakistan was extremely slow to react to the gathering threats. Perhaps the only surprise is that this explosion came out of the Taliban-led Kabul, which was supposed to be a pliant regime. It is shocking that Pakistan got the Afghan Taliban-TTP nexus utterly wrong.

The terrorism problem that Pakistan faces is one that is of its own making. It is Pakistan’s Afghan policy and the unnecessary obsession about a threat from India which should be blamed for fuelling jihadist extremism and terrorism. Pakistan has been pursuing an ill-considered policy of supporting violent extremist groups that are seen capable of hurting India and keeping Kabul under its thumb. It is not that Pakistan’s military was oblivious to Afghan Taliban’s intransigence. Rather, it thought of it as an expedient chess piece in the great game against India. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, in prison for defying the powerful military, had compared the Taliban’s triumphant return with Afghans having “broken the shackles of slavery”. Now, the excitement heralding the Taliban’s recapture of Kabul has been surpassed in intensity by the inexorable realpolitik, interspersed with the ideological rigidities of the Taliban movement. The unsurprising outcome is confusion and paralysis for those in Pakistan who are charged with understanding how the military and political aspects of their response should fit together.