Growing mistrust between Pakisan and Afghanistan
Border tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been on the rise since the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021. While Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring anti-Pakistan elements on its soil viz. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Taliban do not recognize the Durand Line which separates the two countries and divides the home of ethnic Pashtuns.
Recently, the Afghan Foreign Ministry expressed its concern over violation of Afghan airspace by Pakistan’s reconnaissance drones, firing by Pak security forces and installation of barbed wire along the Durand Line by Pakistan military.
In August 2022, Pakistan security forces reportedly tried to enter into one of the villages of Kandahar province without the permission of Afghan officials to re-erect check posts that had been destroyed by the flood. Upon resistance from Afghan security forces, they opened fire with light and heavy weapons.
Firing of mortars by Pakistan security forces has also been reported in Zabol province where Afghan forces objected to re-erection of pillars that had been washed away due to heavy rains. The Taliban do not approve of Pakistan’s erection of a barbed barrier along their 2,670 km border, known as the Durand Line, which was demarcated by the British in 1893 and divided the homeland of ethnic Pashtuns. Kabul does not recognize it as the border and, therefore, opposes fencing by Pak side.
Besides, Pakistani reconnaissance drones have often been spotted carrying out illegal patrol sorties in Afghan provinces of Nangarhar, Helmand, Kandahar and Paktika. On August 30, 2022, acting Defense Minister of Afghanistan Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob had alleged that Pakistan had allowed American drones to use its airspace to carry out attacks inside Afghanistan, a charge Pakistan denied.
A major inflection point in the Pak-Afghan relations came in April 2022, when on April 16, 2022, Pakistani military conducted predawn airstrikes on multiple targets in Afghanistan’s Khost and Kunar provinces. Afghan officials alleged that the attacks killed at least 47 civilians and injured 23 others, mostly women and children. Initial reports described the attacks as either rocket strikes or aerial strikes carried out by Pak air force. However, initially Islamabad denied any involvement in the airstrikes, but Pakistani security officials later claimed that these were drone strikes from inside Pakistani airspace and that no aircraft were deployed.
The airstrikes were apparently in retaliation to the increased attacks by TTP on Pak security forces from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. On April 14, 2022, the Pakistani military acknowledged that nearly 100 soldiers had been killed by militants since January, 2022.
TTP has been a major bone of contention between Pakistan and Afghanistan. TTP shares a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and was allied to the Afghan Taliban during the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups maintain separate operation and command structures. While Pakistan has pursued a policy of supporting the Afghan Taliban for decades, it has carried out crackdowns on TTP. Pakistan holds TTP responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the 2014 Peshawar school massacre.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan has been trying to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crackdown on TTP. Instead, the Afghan Taliban mediated talks between Pakistan and TTP that led to the release of dozens of TTP prisoners in Pakistan.
Incidentally, the growing rancour between the two countries was also manifested in a recent incident (Sep 19) wherein Afghan security guards posted at Pakistan Consulate, Jalalabad roughed up Pakistan diplomats. They also stopped the President and two members of the Nangarhar Chamber of Commerce from meeting the Pak Consulate General.
It appears that the basic discord between the two countries relates to territorial integrity and sovereignty of Afghanistan which continues to be infringed upon by Pakistan.
