Pakistan and Afghanistan border conflict escalates amid mutual accusations of supporting militant groups

On Thursday night, Pakistan attacked targets in Afghanistan. The results of that attack are disputed. The Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist nationalist movement that controls Afghanistan, says that between nine and 10 civilians were killed, including women and children. But Pakistan claims the strike killed 22 militants and destroyed weapons and ammunition depots.

These early October attacks are just the latest escalation in a conflict between the two countries that reignited mid-September, after months of comparative calm.

The conflict was sparked again after a series of attacks on Pakistani security forces. On September 18, an attack on a police compound in the northwestern city of Kohat resulted in the deaths of 31 people and more than 100 injured. A splinter group belonging to the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack in Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan accused Afghanistan of providing the TTP with a safe haven. Afghanistan denies this but clashes at the border and then airstrikes by Pakistan followed.

TTP and Taliban: A complex relationship

The TTP in Pakistan is not the same as Afghanistan's Taliban. Although it does have close ideological and personnel ties to the Afghan Taliban, it is an independent organization that fights the Pakistani state.

Many of its fighters sided with the Taliban during that country's long-running insurgency against international and US troops. This is why, after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the TTP gained more room and more leverage. This has meant that Afghanistan — a former ally of Pakistan — has increasingly become a threat to its neighbor.

Pakistan has asked the Taliban to take action against the TTP, but the close connection between the two make this difficult.

"Because of these personal connections and networks, it is extremely difficult for the Afghan Taliban to break away," says Conrad Schetter, director of the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies, or BICC.

The connections don't mean that the Taliban has any control over the TTP. There are certainly historical connections between the two, but Schetter doesn't believe that equals any sort of strong, direct influence.

"The Taliban are simply not prepared to take orders from Islamabad," adds Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a think tank working between Kabul and Berlin. "They won't let anyone outside interfere."

This means the Pakistani policy of supporting the Taliban in order to gain influence in Afghanistan hasn't worked.

Difficult borders

There's also another older conflict that has an impact on the current situation. This involves what is known as the Durand Line, drawn in 1893 by a British diplomat and an Afghan emir to mark spheres of influence between British India and Afghanistan.

The current border between Afghanistan and Pakistan follows the Durand Line and also divides an area on both sides, homeland to Pashtuns, who make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and second largest in Pakistan.

So the border dispute here isn't just about territory, it's also about identity.

"Ethnic and nationalist elements play a significant role in the conflict," Schetter tells DW. Many Pashtuns still refuse to accept the border that the Durand Line created.

In Pakistan, the country's long-running rivalry with India also plays a part. A friendly Afghanistan would have been advantageous for Pakistan. But India has also strengthened its ties to the Taliban.

"While Islamabad once viewed Afghanistan as a source of 'strategic depth' in its rivalry with India, it now increasingly views its north-western neighbor as a liability," an analysis by British think tank Chatham House notes.

Pakistan exerts pressure

Pakistan still has power over Afghanistan, though. As a landlocked country, Afghanistan relies on trade routes through neighboring countries, and Pakistan in particular. Pakistan can use border closures and trade restrictions to exert pressure even as the Taliban regime is trying to reduce dependence on Pakistan and find new economic and political partners.

Trade and security considerations are now becoming tangled. Pakistan has held talks with the TTP that were mediated by the Taliban and ceasefires were agreed upon. Talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan also took place. But none of the temporary agreements resolved the crucial question of how to prevent attacks on Pakistan from Afghan territory.

So in parallel with diplomacy, Pakistan has also been relying on economic and political pressure, for example, by closing borders and restricting trade and by sending Afghan refugees back into Afghanistan.

An analysis by the US-based Council on Foreign Relations notes that the Taliban are worried that if they crack down on the TTP too hard, they will drive the group towards another extremist militant group, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or IS-K. This group opposes the Taliban.

The conflict recently escalated to another level. At the end of September, Kabul reported 28 killed and 32 captured fighters who had infiltrated Afghanistan from Nuristan province, Pakistan. The Taliban accused Pakistan of supporting its armed opponents, something Pakistan has denied.

"It is known from past decades that Pakistan has regularly supported armed groups on the Afghan side — for example, the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation and later the Taliban," Ruttig points out. "What's new though is that Pakistan apparently also supports parts of today's armed anti-Taliban opposition."

Significant escalation

This is turning the dispute over the TTP into a larger conflict in which both sides accuse each other of supporting armed groups from the other's territory.

British think tank Chatham House speaks of a significant escalation compared to previous border skirmishes. Worryingly, a conflict over armed groups and border incidents is turning into a direct confrontation between the two nation states.

Ruttig believes that it would be possible to contain the spiraling violence if both sides return to negotiations.

"If both sides were willing to return to the negotiating table — perhaps with international mediation —there would be ways to contain the conflict and, above all, to protect the civilian population on both sides," he argues.

In a late September commentary in Pakistani weekly magazine The Friday Times, Pakistani analyst Saqib Ali Khan advocates for several things that could ease the tensions. That includes a reliable channel between Islamabad and Kabul, a separate approach for armed groups and greater involvement of the population along the border.

The conflict, he argues, is not merely a dispute between two governments but also a security, border, economic and regional conflict.

"Along those lines, there would have to be a shift in perspective on both sides," Schetter concludes.

In the long term, greater economic integration is also needed, he adds, so that Pakistan and Afghanistan do not define their relationship solely through security and power issues.

This story was originally published in German.