Alliance under strain: Pakistan rethinks Taliban ties after attacks

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have reached a new low this week following an uptick in terror attacks on Pakistani soil. 

Two separate suicide attacks in the western cities of Hangu and Mastung claimed the lives of at least 60 people on Sept. 29, and prompted a controversial ultimatum: Pakistan’s caretaker government ordered all unauthorized immigrants, including an estimated 1.7 million Afghans, to leave the country by Nov. 1 or face forced deportation. 

Central to the deterioration of ties between the governments is the relationship, perceived or real, between the Afghan Taliban and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), colloquially known as the Pakistani Taliban. The militant offshoot emerged during what became known as the war on terror, which was led by the United States.

Pakistan says the TTP is using Afghanistan as a safe haven from which to launch terrorist attacks, an allegation Kabul has consistently denied. 

Of the roughly two dozen suicide attacks carried out along the Pakistan-Afghan border since January, the majority can be attributed to Afghan citizens, says Sarfaraz Bugti, Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister.

“There is no doubt that attacks on us are coming from Afghanistan,” he said at a Tuesday press conference. On Wednesday, Pakistan’s army said an Afghan sentry had opened fire at the Wesh-Chaman border crossing and killed two Pakistani citizens, including a 12-year-old child.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid urged Pakistan to reconsider its ultimatum. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he called the threat of deportation unacceptable and was adamant that Afghan refugees were “not involved in Pakistan’s security problems.”

The events represent a sharp break from Pakistan’s historically sympathetic attitude toward the Taliban, with whom they shared ideological and security interests. For years Pakistan has provided the Taliban much-needed financial and diplomatic support, and during the fall of Kabul, when the Taliban reclaimed power as Western forces retreated, then-Prime Minister Imran Khan said the group was “breaking the chains of slavery.”

But what Pakistan regards as Afghanistan’s failure to crack down on TTP activity has some seeing this relationship in a new light. Not all Pakistanis back the government’s ultimatum, but many see an urgent need for change. 

Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari, who serves as an adviser on international affairs in the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Pakistan’s largest, argues that the inconsistency of Pakistan’s policy toward Afghanistan has had a destabilizing effect on the region. 

“Really and truly, we need to think about why we’re meddling in a neighboring country’s problems,” he says. “I don’t think Pakistan has gained anything in terms of having a close relationship with Afghanistan.”

Suspicious alliance

After the collapse of the Soviet-backed administration of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, Afghanistan became the theater of a long civil war that only ended when the Taliban – backed by Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency – took over the country in September 1996. Then, when the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush authorized a full-fledged military campaign to remove the Taliban from power and pressured Pakistan to become a front-line state in the war on terror.  

In the decades since, Pakistan has often been accused of playing both sides in the war. This infamous “double game,” as it has been dubbed in the American press, allegedly manifests in Pakistan’s oscillation between covert support for and military operations against the Taliban leadership. The result, experts say, is an alliance fraught with suspicion. 

In July, the chief of Pakistan’s politically powerful army, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, reminded Afghanistan’s de facto government of its commitment to ensure that its territory would not be used as a base for foreign terror operations. He also promised an “effective response” from Pakistan’s security forces should such attacks continue on Pakistani soil.

The recent suicide bombings in Mastung and Hangu have exacerbated tensions in what Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow at Chatham House’s Asia-Pacific program, describes as an already “uneasy” alliance.

“The Afghan Taliban, while they have certainly been the beneficiaries of Pakistan’s patronage, have always deeply resented the view that they are simply creatures of the Pakistani state,” Dr. Shaikh says. “What we find now is a very curious and some would say ironical situation where the Afghan Taliban, through their leverage on the TTP, have come to exercise the kind of control over some areas of Pakistan that would have appeared inconceivable some years ago.”

Tough love

Diplomat Maleeha Lodhi, who served as Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2015 to 2019, says it’s not going to be easy for Pakistan to extricate itself from this alliance, partly because the security concerns that initially drew Islamabad to the Taliban have not changed.

“The Taliban’s unwillingness to act against the TTP ... has strained Pakistan-Afghan relations, but stabilizing ties with its western neighbor remains a strategic compulsion for Pakistan given its unstable border with India,” she says. “The question is what kind of tough-love policy Islamabad is prepared to pursue to persuade the Taliban to respond to its security concerns.”

Experts see the crackdown on unauthorized migrants – which Mr. Bugti says is not aimed at Afghans, though most migrants in Pakistan are from Afghanistan – as one way to rattle the saber.

During the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s, approximately 6 million Afghan refugees moved to Iran and Pakistan in search of safety. Nearly 2 million more have fled their homeland since the Taliban retook Afghanistan in 2021, with many relocating to Pakistan. 

Of the 4.4 million Afghans living in Pakistan today, authorities say 2.4 million have refugee status and are free to stay. Beyond ordering unauthorized migrants to voluntarily leave the country in the coming weeks, the Pakistani government has not announced any concrete proposals to repatriate the others. Given the insecurity of the Pakistan-Afghan border, it is not clear if such a policy is even feasible.

Human rights campaigners in Pakistan are cautioning against a knee-jerk reaction from the government. 

Malaika Raza, the general secretary of the human rights wing of the Pakistan People's Party, argues that the state’s response toward asylum-seekers should be rooted in compassion. 

“As a neighboring Muslim country, Pakistan holds a unique position to understand and empathize with the plight of Afghan refugees,” she says, noting that there are people in Pakistan who have family on both sides of the porous border and could also suffer from escalating tensions.

“It is not only our moral obligation but also a reflection of our compassionate society to extend our protection and support to these vulnerable individuals,” she adds.