{"id":5440,"date":"2025-11-12T18:22:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=5440"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:49:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:49:50","slug":"pakistans-double-game-in-afghanistan-waits-on-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=5440","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s double game in Afghanistan waits on reckoning\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ehsan Azari Stanizai<\/div>\n
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On Saturday evening, October 11, 2025, Pakistan carried out an unprecedented airstrike on the Afghan capital, Kabul, aiming to target a leader of TTP (Tahrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), formerly seen by Pakistan as \u2018good Taliban\u2019 proxy militants.\u00a0\u00a0 The attack ignited a fierce retaliatory cross-border skirmish by the Taliban along the disputed Durand Line, which divides the two neighbouring countries, resulting in scores of fatalities on both sides.\u00a0 Pakistan is hoping that by using its renewed ties with the US, it will succeed in dragging the US back to the Afghan theatre of war to restrain the rising internal insurgency.<\/div>\n
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Mediated by Qatar and Turkey, both sides mutually agreed to an immediate ceasefire in Doha.\u00a0 However, the third round of the peace negotiations in Istanbul collapsed.\u00a0 Both sides, guns a-blazing, resumed exchanging fire for a single day last week.<\/div>\n
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Given a rollercoaster relationship between the Pakistani military and the Taliban since the latter regained control of Kabul in 2021, neither side appears to maintain the ceasefire afloat for long.<\/div>\n
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The underlying root cause of the strained relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan stems from the 2,670-kilometre Durand Line, which was drawn during British India, cutting off heartlessly Pashtun communities, villages, cemeteries and mosques.\u00a0 Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has maintained that it inherited the Portugal-sized Pashtun tribal belt from the British Raj, viewing the Durand line as an immutable border. However, Afghanistan contests the legitimacy of the de facto border.\u00a0 Each subsequent Afghan government, including the Taliban, has refrained from acknowledging the legitimacy of the Durand line.\u00a0 The mere mention of a border with Pakistan evokes a deep emotional response within the Afghan psyche. During the negotiation leading up to the ceasefire, the tense atmosphere was so palpable that, according to the Taliban\u2019s persistence, the Qatari foreign office removed the term \u2018border\u2019 from the text of the truce.<\/div>\n
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Following an agreement with the protectorate king of Afghanistan, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, the Foreign Secretary of British India, Sir Mortimer Durand, delineated the boundary between Afghanistan and British India in 1893.\u00a0 The primary objective of drawing the Durand line was not to create a border between the two sovereign nations, but rather to determine the administrative boundaries between the Afghan king and the British Raj.\u00a0 \u201cThe Durand Line was an agreement to define the respective spheres of influence of the British government and the Amir (Abdul Rahman).\u00a0 Its object was to preserve and to obtain the Amir\u2019s acceptance of the status quo,\u201d the Viceroy, Lord Elgin, wrote in 1896.\u00a0 Similarly, according to his biographer, Percy Sykes, Durand himself acknowledged during negotiations with Amir in\u00a0The Right Sir Mortimer Durand<\/i>, that the British Empire intended to bring areas of Afghanistan under its political control.\u00a0 He clarified, \u201cThe tribes on the Indian side are not to be considered as within British territory. They are simply under our influence in the technical sense of the term, that is to say, so far as the Amir is concerned and as far as they submit to our influence or we exert it.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The geopolitical significance of the Durand Line has been widely acknowledged globally. As Lord Cuzon, the former British Viceroy, aptly noted in 1907, \u201c\u2018the razor\u2019s edge [Durand line] on which hang suspended the modern issues of war or peace, of life or death of nations.\u201d This longstanding border dispute has never been as explosive as it is today.\u00a0 The shifting geopolitical dynamics in South and Central Asia pose the risk of a full-blown war between Afghanistan and Pakistan at any moment. This geopolitical fault-line has engendered perpetual tensions regarding territorial entitlements, border conflicts and the infiltration of Islamic terrorists and religious militants, such as TTP, across the border.<\/div>\n
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It is undeniable that the Durand Line\u2019s legitimacy has always been precarious, explaining Pakistan\u2019s strategy of playing a double game over the past decades.\u00a0 While aligning with the United States\u2019 anti-terror coalition in Afghanistan to receive aid in billions of dollars, the Pakistani military played footsie with different brands of Islamist militants, utilising them for both domestic security and geopolitical objectives. Consequently, the Taliban\u2019s resurgence was met with great fanfare in Islamabad as a Pakistani strategic triumph.\u00a0 However, the Pakistan Taliban scheme soon deteriorated into a Frankenstein when the Taliban turned against their former handlers.\u00a0 It is not surprising that Pakistan designates the Taliban as Indian proxies.<\/div>\n
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After the Taliban\u2019s return to power on August 15, 2021, the former chief of Pakistan\u2019s infamous military intelligence (ISI), Faiz Hameed, hurried to Kabul on September 4, 2021, and actively participated in the formation of the Taliban leadership structure and their newly established cabinet.\u00a0 Several Pakistani agents were strategically placed within the Taliban government. According to the Afghan sources, the most influential proxy in Afghanistan is the mysterious anti-Western Amir of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, who maintains strong connections with the ISI.\u00a0 His most egregious decrees for establishing his oppressive dystopia in Afghanistan have inadvertently served Pakistan\u2019s objectives: a weak, unstable, and internationally unrecognised Afghanistan.\u00a0 Over the past four years, he has consistently employed religion as an all-purpose tool to tighten his unbridled control over power. Afghan girls and women, who are denied access to education and employment, have become the tragic victims of his barbaric misogynist policies.<\/div>\n
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In the meantime, each decree he has issued has been terrifying, revealing the depth of his profound ignorance and tyrannical fixation: \u201cAll Afghans must submit to me as if they were lifeless bodies\u201d; \u201cA woman\u2019s face and the sound of her voice are prohibited from being seen or heard in public\u201d; \u201cAll books authored by women must be removed from universities,\u201d to name but a few. Throughout his four years of rule, he has never made a public appearance.\u00a0 No independent and respected Afghan has ever encountered or met him.\u00a0\u00a0 On rare occasions when he does appear in public, he wears dark glasses and a wrap to conceal his face.\u00a0 His social invisibility has perplexed both Afghans and outsiders alike.\u00a0 Afghans are divided over the identity of the Amir, much as Russians were over the identity of\u00a0false Dmitry,<\/i>\u00a0the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible, during the sixteenth century.<\/div>\n
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In the Afghan social media landscape, interpretations of Hibatullah Akhundzada\u2019s ghostly figure vary widely.\u00a0 While some contend that he may not be the original Habatullah due to his alleged death alongside his brother in a suicide blast in Quetta before 2021, there are even speculations suggesting that he could be a covert \u201cISI officer\u201d.\u00a0 In contrast, the Pakistani media portrays him in a positive light.\u00a0 For instance,\u00a0The Express Tribune<\/i>, a newspaper closely aligned with the Pakistani military, reported on August 29, 2025, that \u201cVenerated Moulvi Haibatullah [sic<\/i>] Akhundzada is showing frustrations and signs of discontent and is divided\u00a0on key issues like relations with Pakistan and the TTP\u2026\u201d The Pakistani military is keeping Taliban Amir and his inner circle for its last gasp goal in Afghanistan.<\/div>\n
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Facing an unyielding insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, Field Marshal Asim Munir, the all-powerful Pakistani military chief, sought to regain the favour of the United States.\u00a0 President Trump extended an invitation to a White House lunch on June 18, 2025.\u00a0 Munir\u2019s objective is to pull the US back into the Afghan quagmire, potentially alleviating the mounting burden of Islamist terrorists and separatists, whose casualties on the Pakistani army and security forces continue to escalate.\u00a0 The US move could be viewed as another mistake in re-entering a conflict that, by definition, is a war for which the ruling Pakistani military has no one to blame.\u00a0 In the face of the escalating conflict with Afghanistan, the army chief is heading down Actaeon\u2019s path<\/div>\n
Dr Ehsan Aaari Stanizai is an academic at the University of Western Sydney. He is also the director of the Sydney Lacan Study and Reading Network.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ehsan Azari Stanizai On Saturday evening, October 11, 2025, Pakistan carried out an unprecedented airstrike on the Afghan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghan-news","category-article-article"],"yoast_head":"\nPakistan\u2019s double game in Afghanistan waits on reckoning\u00a0 - Taand English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=5440\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pakistan\u2019s double game in Afghanistan waits on reckoning\u00a0 - 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