Islamabad and Kabul resumed Saudi-hosted talks in Riyadh to ease border tensions, but sources say the effort failed again, with both sides yet to comment.
A senior Kabul delegation, comprising Anas Haqqani, Deputy Interior Minister Rahmatullah Najib, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi, travelled to Riyadh last week for talks with Pakistani officials, according to local media outlets. Saudi Arabia, which has recently positioned itself as a mediator, facilitated the meeting as part of efforts to ease mounting tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.
People familiar with the discussions said the talks focused on restoring a structured communication channel and addressing persistent cross-border security concerns. The consultations, held behind closed doors, were expected to revive dialogue suspended after months of friction. However, the negotiations in Riyadh ended without progress, marking yet another failed attempt to bridge differences.
Sources reported that the talks “yielded no results,” echoing the collapse of earlier rounds held in Istanbul. The Taliban have not issued any statement on the Riyadh meeting, and Pakistan has also remained publicly silent. Previous efforts by Qatar and Turkey, including an emergency session in Doha that briefly produced a ceasefire, similarly failed to deliver a lasting agreement.
Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have worsened in recent months following a rise in attacks Pakistan attributes to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), disagreements over border management, and clashes around key crossings such as Torkham. Islamabad continues to demand “decisive action” against armed groups allegedly operating from Afghanistan territory, an accusation the Taliban repeatedly dismiss.
With Saudi Arabia’s effort now joining earlier failed mediation attempts, analysts say the path to meaningful dialogue remains uncertain. Without a verifiable security framework or sustained diplomatic engagement, the Afghanistan–Pakistan relationship is expected to remain fragile and prone to renewed escalation.
Islamabad–Kabul Peace Talks Launched Under Saudi Mediation; Reports Say the Effort Failed Again
When Rahmanullah Lakanwal came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, he appeared lively and full of hope, but over the course of years, he slipped into isolation and was prone to taking cross-country drives without telling his family, according to a volunteer who worked closely with his family.
Lakanwal, an Afghan national, is accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers on Nov. 26. One of those soldiers, 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, died from her wounds. On Monday, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey described the other guard member, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, as in “serious” condition.
“My biggest concern was that [Lakanwal] would harm himself,” the refugee resettlement volunteer told NPR. “I worried he would be suicidal because he was so withdrawn.”
They said when they first met Lakanwal in 2022 at his home in Bellingham, Wash., he appeared hopeful and outgoing. “He was outside with his kids, laughing and playing and having animated conversations with other Afghan men,” they said.
Lakanwal held jobs for brief periods and hosted gatherings at his home, the volunteer said, but by 2023 he began isolating himself and appeared “defeated” by the challenges of finding steady work and adapting to life in the United States.
The volunteer shared with NPR emails sent in January 2024 that raised alarms about Lakanwal’s well-being.
“He spends most of his time in his darkened bedroom, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife and older kids,” one email said. “I personally believe that [Mr. Lakanwal] is suffering from both PTSD and from his work with the US military in Afghanistan,” the volunteer wrote, adding that they are “not a healthcare professional.”
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said U.S. officials believe Lakanwal was “radicalized” while living in the United States.
“We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him,” Noem said.
But the volunteer who worked with Lakanwal and other Afghan refugees in Washington state told NPR they saw no sign of radicalization. Instead they described an individual who seemed to be experiencing a deepening personal crisis, complicated by Lakanwal’s poor English-language skills and deepening cultural isolation. The volunteer said there were no organized resources for refugees beyond their initial welcome.
“Families were just in my mind abandoned into the community,” the volunteer said.
This photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Nov. 27 shows Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Before coming to the U.S. in 2021, Lakanwal served in one of Afghanistan’s elite counterterrorism units, according to AfghanEvac, a nonprofit that supports Afghan refugees and is run by U.S. veterans and others who served in Afghanistan. Lakanwal’s unit was operated by the CIA with direct U.S. intelligence and military support, according to AfghanEvac, and fought the Taliban on behalf of the U.S. government.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement last week that the shooter involved in the attack was admitted into the U.S. “due to his prior work with the U.S. Government, including CIA.”
The volunteer told NPR they had no detailed knowledge of Lakanwal’s military duties and never observed him expressing hostility toward the United States. They said his increasingly erratic behavior never suggested any kind of threat or danger.
“I was so shocked that this happened. I asked myself, ‘Were there warning signs?’ No,” the volunteer said.
While the volunteer couldn’t provide insight into Lakanwal’s possible motive for the alleged attack, they were aware of him making long drives like the one that took him to Washington, D.C., last week. Beginning in 2023, Lakanwal would disappear for weeks at a time in the family car, roaming as far as Arizona and Illinois.
Emails shared with NPR also indicate volunteers in Washington state attempted to reach out to professional refugee aid groups, including World Relief and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), hoping to find help for Lakanwal’s deteriorating mental state, but they got limited response.
“A group of concerned individuals [volunteering on refugee resettlement] in the Seattle area had a meeting in January 2024 to talk about dwindling resources for these families, and frustration was expressed,” the volunteer told NPR.
NPR reached out to World Relief and USCRI for comment. USCRI didn’t respond. World Relief sent a statement declining to say whether the organization had any involvement in Lakanwal’s resettlement in the United States.
“We cannot confirm whether or not we have served any specific client without permission from our federal government partners who administered the process for bringing Afghans to the United States beginning in 2021,” the World Relief statement said.
The group added that it “provided services to those [refugees] assigned to use by our governmental partners” and said it is supporting law enforcement in the investigation of Lakanwal’s case.
Following last week’s violence, the Trump administration moved to freeze refugee cases involving Afghan nationals and launched a review of refugees and migrants from more than a dozen countries living legally inside the United States. Activists working with asylum-seekers from Afghanistan told NPR they view Lakanwal’s alleged violence as an isolated case.
“You can’t paint with a broad brush this entire community. The vast majority of Afghans who have come here are just good upstanding citizens,” said Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads the group AfghanEvac.
Afghan suspect in D.C. National Guard attack appeared to suffer personal crisis
Senior military leaders suppressed reports of potential war crimes by elite troops, whistleblower testifies.
Senior United Kingdom special forces leaders covered up potential war crimes in Afghanistan, a former senior officer has told a public inquiry.
The former high-ranking officer alleged that two former directors of Britain’s special forces failed to act on claims that soldiers unlawfully killed civilians in Afghanistan while operating there more than 10 years ago, according to evidence released on Monday.
The whistleblower’s testimony alleged that commanders at the highest levels knew about suspected executions as early as 2011, but chose to bury the claims rather than report them to military police.
The evidence suggests the inaction allowed the killings to continue for at least two more years, raising questions about accountability within one of the world’s best training and lethal military units.
The officer, identified only as N1466 to protect his true identity, was among the most senior figures in UK special forces.
He told the inquiry he handed over what he described as “explosive” evidence pointing to criminal conduct by Special Air Service (SAS) troops operating in the country.
N1466 said he first grew concerned in early 2011 after reviewing reports from Afghanistan that showed an alarming pattern.
During one raid, nine Afghan men were killed, but only three weapons were recovered. The officer also heard that soldiers had been boasting during training about killing all fighting-age males during operations, irrespective of what threat they posed.
The whistleblower said he passed his findings to the director of special forces, making clear there was strong potential for criminal behaviour.
But instead of alerting investigators, the director ordered an internal review of tactics that N1466 dismissed as “a little fake exercise” designed to give the appearance of action while suppressing the truth.
When a second director took charge in 2012, the lethal pattern of behaviour wasn’t arrested.
That same year, two young parents were shot dead in their bed during a night raid in Nimruz province. Their infant sons, sleeping beside them, were also shot and seriously wounded. The incident was not reported to police.
N1466 said he eventually went to military police himself in 2015, but expressed deep regret at not acting sooner.
“Those people who died unnecessarily from that point onwards, there were two toddlers shot in their bed next to their parents, all that would not necessarily have come to pass” if the allegations had been properly handled, he said.
The investigation is examining whether around 80 Afghan civilians were unlawfully killed by British forces between 2010 and 2013.
It was launched in 2023 after a BBC documentary revealed that one SAS squadron had killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances during just six months.
Johnny Mercer, the UK’s former veterans minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that the process through which this information was coming to light “has to be done fairly”.
“We’re not going to get there by selectively releasing bits of commentary that fit a certain narrative,” Mercer said.
Despite previous military police investigations, no charges have ever been brought. The inquiry continues.
UK special forces chiefs covered up Afghanistan war crimes, inquiry told
Fidan stated that they discussed tensions between Kabul and Islamabad but did not provide further details.
As uncertainty looms over relations between Kabul and Islamabad, regional diplomatic efforts have intensified.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was expected to lead a delegation to Islamabad to help ease tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, instead traveled to Tehran on Sunday (Sunday).
In a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Fidan stated that they discussed tensions between Kabul and Islamabad but did not provide further details.
Hakan Fidan said: “I spoke with the Iranian Foreign Minister about various topics, including Afghanistan, Israeli expansionism, the ongoing nuclear consultations, and the tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Turkey has played an active and key role in three rounds of talks between Kabul and Islamabad and hosted the second and third rounds. After the third round of talks in Istanbul ended without results, Iran also expressed readiness to help resolve the tensions.
Iran’s foreign minister, after talks with his counterparts from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, and Russia, announced that a regional summit aimed at addressing issues between the two countries would be held in December.
But the key question remains: Can the coordinated efforts by Ankara and Tehran thaw the frosty relations between Kabul and Islamabad?
Fazl Menallah Mumtaz, a political analyst, said: “Turkey and Iran sense a threat that if this situation escalates into a full-scale conflict, it will become a regional crisis involving external actors. That’s why Turkey and Iran are taking this matter seriously.”
Moeen Gul Samakni, another political analyst, added: “Three countries are especially important, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, because they each have competing interests in Afghanistan. Therefore, they need to build a national and regional consensus to resolve this crisis.”
These regional efforts come as both sides, following the breakdown of recent talks, have accused each other of failing to present reasonable demands; allegations that have further complicated the atmosphere for dialogue.
Earlier, at the conclusion of the third round of talks in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had announced that a high-level delegation including Turkey’s foreign minister, defense minister, and intelligence chief would travel to Islamabad to help resolve tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Diplomatic Efforts Grow Amid Uncertainty in Kabul-Islamabad Relations
Reuters reported that the U.S. President has informed the country’s consulates around the world that scheduled appointments for SIV applicants will not be canceled.
A number of Afghan citizens in the United States have expressed concern over recent decisions by the U.S. government regarding Afghan refugees, emphasizing that the recent shooting incident should not affect the situation of other Afghan citizens in the country.
Bawar, an Afghan citizen in the U.S., said: “With the recent developments, my hopes are once again fading. I think if these restrictions increase, our future will remain uncertain.”
On the other hand, Reuters reported that the U.S. President has informed the country’s consulates around the world that scheduled appointments for Afghan visa applicants will not be canceled.
Aref Saeedi, another Afghan citizen in the U.S., said: “Most people here have applied for green cards, and now it is unclear how far this process will go. This is not just my problem; everyone here is facing issues, especially those with P-1, P-2, and green card cases.”
The Washington Post, citing information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reported that over 5,000 Afghan refugees who were relocated to the U.S. after the withdrawal of U.S. forces are under surveillance due to concerns linked to “national security.”
Views on the matter vary among citizens in Afghanistan as well.
Abdul Wali Ahmadzai, a resident of Kabul, said: “They have always been looking for an excuse to deport Afghan migrants, and this became a good excuse. I think they are exaggerating the matter too much.”
After a shooting by an Afghan citizen on November 27 targeting two members of the U.S. National Guard in Washington, the U.S. State Department announced the suspension of visa issuance for Afghan passport holders.
Afghan Refugees in U.S. Worry Over Uncertain Future Amid New Restrictions
The UN says organisations supporting women in Afghanistan have lost major funding this year, leaving essential protection services strained as restrictions and violence intensify.
UN Women warned that Afghanistan women’s organisations are facing a sharp funding shortfall even as gender-based violence rises under Taliban restrictions.
The warning came on Saturday as the agency marked the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign.
The agency said women’s groups have received less than 60% of the money needed this year, forcing shelters and service providers to reduce operations despite higher demand for support.
Reports of violence against women have climbed by 40% in the past two years, while access to legal protection remains limited due to Taliban rules on movement, work and education.
UN Women urged donors to restore financial support, warning that further cuts could shut down life-saving services for women across Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Humanitarian agencies caution that without swift donor support, vital shelters, legal aid systems and psychosocial services could collapse, leaving vulnerable women with no safe options.
UN Warns Services for Women in Afghanistan at Risk as Funding Dries Up
UN special rapporteur Richard Bennett will travel to Doha for meetings with Afghanistan representatives and regional officials as part of efforts to address Afghanistan’s worsening human rights situation.
The UN has announced that Richard Bennett, the Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on Afghanistan, will travel to Doha from December 1 to 4 for meetings with Afghanistan representatives and regional and international partners.
According to a UN statement issued on Sunday, Bennett will hold talks with Qatari officials, Afghanistan civil society members, and diplomats based in Doha to assess the human-rights situation and explore coordinated approaches to supporting Afghanistan civilians.
The UN said Bennett’s mission is aimed at strengthening regional dialogue and using “all available tools” to improve the rights environment in Afghanistan, where restrictions on women, minorities and civil society have sharply escalated since the Taliban takeover.
Bennett’s mandate, which the Human Rights Council extended earlier this year, requires him to report on rights violations and engage governments on policy responses to Afghanistan’s worsening humanitarian and human-rights landscape.
Despite the ongoing international engagement, the Taliban have barred Bennett from entering Afghanistan, accusing him of issuing politically motivated reports. As a result, he continues to meet Afghanistan activists, refugees and diaspora groups outside the country.
Human-rights organisations have urged the UN to intensify diplomatic pressure on the Taliban, warning that rights protections are collapsing and regional coordination remains weak.
Bennett’s consultations in Doha are expected to shape his next formal assessment to the Human Rights Council, outlining recommendations for an international strategy toward Afghanistan in 2025.
UN Rights Envoy Richard Bennett Travels to Doha for Talks on Afghanistan’s Human Rights Crisis
As Pakistan and Afghanistan have escalated military clashes and closed their borders, the Pakistani authorities have intensified mass expulsions of Afghans, saying they can no longer accommodate the decades-old refugee community.
So far this year, about one million of the three million Afghans living in Pakistan have been deported or forced to return to Afghanistan, a country where many have never lived and where jobs and affordable housing are scarce amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. Many have lived their whole lives in Pakistan, which had served as a haven during Afghanistan’s successive wars since the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979.
It no longer is.
On a recent evening on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, four families with children, including an infant just 7 days old, were loading a truck with their lifelong possessions: bed frames, chickens, water jerrycans and a few pieces of luggage.
Saifuddin, who goes by one name, said they had decided to leave before the crackdown on Afghans got worse. They had heard calls to go back to Afghanistan both at the mosque where they prayed and from the loudspeakers on police cars patrolling their slum.
“Even after 45 years here, this isn’t our land,” he said. “And we don’t have a single home in Afghanistan.”
Large numbers of Afghans have moved back and forth for decades, especially in the countries’ border areas that share linguistic and cultural ties. Expulsions are not new, but the indiscriminate nature of the current drive is. Pakistan has vowed to expel all Afghans, no matter what their immigration status is or if they face danger upon their return to Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s push overlaps with moves by Western nations to restrict or prohibit Afghans from entering. The Trump administration said that it had stopped processing immigration applications from Afghanistan, and that it would review the status of Afghan asylum seekers already in the United States, including those who worked for American or NATO forces during the U.S.-led war, after the shooting on Wednesday of two National Guard members in Washington. The main suspect is Afghan.
Iran, another of Afghanistan’s neighbors, has also deported or forced out more than 1.5 million Afghans this year. The large Afghan refugee communities abroad have served as a lifeline for Afghanistan, sending money back home and driving cross-border trade that has helped keep a battered Afghan economy afloat.
But as Pakistan and Iran have faced their own economic crises, their governments have amped up the xenophobic rhetoric in recent months and accelerated large-scale expulsions that they initiated in 2023. Since then, the two nations have expelled or forcibly returned more than 4.5 million Afghans. More than half of those — 2.5 million — were driven out this year.
The Pakistani authorities have urged landlords to kick Afghan families out of apartments and encouraged citizens in at least one province to help them deport Afghans through a whistle-blower system. They have already arrested 12 times as many Afghans this year as in all of last year, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.
Those leaving before they get arrested, like Saifuddin’s family, have become a common sight on Pakistan’s roads, loaded aboard colorful trucks that carry entire families and their possessions to the border.
They are being driven out of the slums of Karachi, where many lived by collecting metal scraps or other garbage. Others have left the city of Lahore, where they worked as day laborers and mechanics, and the onion fields and coal mines of Balochistan, where they served as a cheap, hard-working labor force.
“We’re at the mercy of the Pakistani authorities,” said Mehrafzon Jalili, 24, a former Afghan dentistry student who for months lived in a tent encampment in a park in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital. She shared the park with hundreds of other Afghan families who were evicted from their homes this year.
Early on Tuesday, Pakistani police officers swept in to arrest the stranded Afghans and take them to a deportation facility, according to Ms. Jalili and another Afghan woman in the encampment, who shared videos of the raid with The New York Times.
The mass migrations of Afghans into Pakistan began after the Soviet invasion, when Islamabad welcomed them as “holy warriors” and “Islamic brethren.” But the official messaging has shifted over the decades, increasingly portraying them as “criminals,” “drug peddlers” and, most recently, “terrorists.”
“We have been welcoming and hosting them with open arms for decades,” Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the spokesman for Pakistan’s armed forces, said in an interview this year. “But a large number of Afghans are involved in criminal activities.”
Pakistani officials now argue that all Afghans in the country are a threat to national security. They have said that the attacker behind the bombing of a courthouse in Islamabad that killed 12 people this month was Afghan.
A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, which is independent but has pledged allegiance to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Pakistani authorities accuse the Afghan government of financing and sheltering militants of the resurgent Pakistani Taliban, which has staged regular attacks on security forces within Pakistan.
The tensions between the two countries escalated this past week, when a suicide attack on the headquarters of paramilitary forces in the western Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, killed three officers and wounded 11 others. President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the attack.
Afghan refugees this month in a makeshift shelter in Argentina Park in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Pakistan has retaliated in recent months by launching airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities and in the border areas that have long been a hotbed of insurgent activities. On Tuesday, the Taliban government spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, accused Pakistan of killing 10 people in air raids overnight. The Pakistani military denied responsibility.
Afghan security forces have struck back by attacking Pakistani military posts, in a sharp spiral of violence this fall that has killed dozens and has pushed regional powers like Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Russia to try to mediate between the two belligerents, to little success so far.
Afghan citizens in Pakistan have been caught in the middle of the rising tensions.
The authorities have refused to renew the visas of Afghans who have lived in Pakistan for their entire lives, including children born there. Some 620,000 of the Afghans living in Pakistan are under the age of 15. “Expelled young Afghans will remember it for generations,” said Saba Gul Khattak, an independent Pakistani researcher who has campaigned for better treatment of Afghans.
While many wealthier Afghans have avoided deportation so far through connections or bribes to renew their visas, the expulsion drive has fallen hardest on the poor.
Ms. Jalili and the families who were arrested in the park are among those who face expulsion.
She worked for years as a hospital receptionist, serving as the main breadwinner for her mother and three of her siblings, until her family’s Pakistani landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Her father was an Afghan Army colonel who was arrested and killed by the Taliban while in hiding in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, she said.
At night, when a shivering cold fell on the park, Afghan men and teenage boys took turns standing at entries to protect the community. But they could do little when the police cleared the park and forced the Afghan families onto buses.
Ms. Jalili has a valid visa and said in text messages from the detention facility that she hopes she and her family will not be sent back to Afghanistan.
“But what about others?” she wrote. “They will deport them. Who will ask?”
Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Fed Up With the Taliban, Pakistan Expels Masses of Afghans
Afghanistan and Pakistan appear headed toward a new military escalation.
Afghanistan and Pakistan appear headed toward a new military escalation amid deadly attacks on both sides of the border and mounting frustration in Islamabad over Indian outreach to the Taliban.
Kabul accused Pakistan of launching airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday that killed at least 10 people, including nine children, and vowed to retaliate. Pakistan denied responsibility for the attack.The Taliban-run Afghan government believes the strikes were retribution for an attack on the headquarters of a Pakistani paramilitary force in Peshawar on Monday that killed at least three personnel. Pakistan blamed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a militant group that has pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader.
Similar tensions last month led to a week of cross-border clashes.
Pakistan has accused both its archrival, India, and the Taliban of supporting the TTP. New Delhi and Kabul reject the claim. But their deepening ties have prompted fears in Islamabad that its neighbors are plotting against it.
“We are deeply concerned about this alignment,” a senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official said. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
India has courted the isolated Taliban regime publicly with gestures that have included hosting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for a week in October.
New Delhi has stopped short of officially recognizing the Taliban-run government, a step only Russia has taken. But it has upgraded its mission in Kabul to an embassy, launched a joint chamber of commerce, and agreed to establish airfreight corridors between Afghanistan and India.
“Afghanistan has long been a battleground for India and Pakistan influence,” said Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “With Pakistan now on the defensive, given its crisis in ties with the Taliban, India sees an opportunity.”
For India, analysts say, the Taliban could become a useful partner. New Delhi’s outreach to the repressive regime, condemned internationally for its draconian restrictions on women and others, stems from the recognition that it “has few other friends” in the region, said Happymon Jacob, founder of the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, based in the Indian capital.
“If we can have a relationship with North Korea, I see no reason why there should be no relationship with the Taliban,” Jacob said.
The Taliban have welcomed the warming ties as a much-needed economic boost. After months of disruption on the border with Pakistan, long Afghanistan’s primary trading partner, the regime is urging merchants to explore new routes.
The Taliban have expanded trade with their western neighbor, Iran, and with the Central Asian nations to their north.
Officials in Pakistan say the Taliban’s economic dilemma is of their own making. Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif called the regime “a ragtag group” that Islamabad is “completely writing off.”
“There will be no greater idiocy than trusting them,” he told Geo televisions last week.
A suicide bombing in Islamabad this month killed 12 people, the deadliest attack in the country’s heartland in almost a decade. Pakistani officials blamed the TTP but also implicated the Afghan Taliban and India. They did not produce evidence for the two governments’ involvement.
For many Pakistani officials, the TTP’s expanding insurgency in northwestern Pakistan might feel personal. Pakistan helped to create the Taliban in the aftermath of the Afghan-Soviet War in the 1990s by arming and sheltering the militants. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States pressured Islamabad to distance itself from the regime and led a coalition to oust it.
But when U.S. forces left Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban retook power, then-Prime Minister Imran Khan welcomed their return. The Afghans, he said, had removed the “shackles of slavery.”
But the Taliban have not met Pakistan’s hopes. TTP attacks surged, and the Afghan Taliban refrained from stepping in, Pakistani officials say. Islamabad accuses the Taliban of sheltering TTP and allowing the group to launch attacks on Pakistan from Afghan territory.
The brunt of the estrangement has been borne by ordinary Afghans. Pakistan has ordered more than 1 million Afghans to leave the country over the past three years to pressure the Taliban to rein in the TTP.
After the recent harvest season in Afghanistan, farmers’ vegetables, fruits and other perishables rotted at closed border crossings.
“It hurts both sides,” said Khan Jan Alokozai, an Afghan trader.
Cement exports from Pakistan to Afghanistan have also ground to a halt, he said, imperiling Pakistani jobs, as well. But traders in Pakistan believe that Afghanistan stands to lose much more and will have little choice than to begin cracking down on the TPP. Afghan merchants rely on Pakistan’s deepwater ports on the Arabian Sea for exports and imports. Circumventing the country can add weeks of transit time, said Shahid Hussain, a Pakistani trader.
“There is no or only very little impact on the Pakistani industries,” Hussain said.
Afghan officials view Iran’s Persian Gulf ports as possible alternatives, but Hussain cautioned that similar efforts under the former U.S.-backed Afghan government were not economically viable.
Meanwhile, a switch to airfreight with India could hinge on the Taliban regime’s ability to expand the country’s aging fleet of planes.
In an incident that might bode ill for the Taliban’s aspirations, the national carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines only narrowly escaped disaster in Delhi this past weekend when one of its planes landed on the wrong runway, several Indian newspapers reported, citing Indian officials.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Afghan Transportation and Aviation Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Afghan carrier is banned from many countries’ airspaces over safety concerns.
Haq Nawaz Khan, Supriya Kumar and Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report.
Indian outreach to Taliban is ratcheting up Afghan-Pakistani tensions
Kabul says its forces stand fully prepared to respond to any violation of Afghanistan’s territory, warning neighbours that recent cross-border tensions will be met with decisive action.
Taliban authorities showcased hundreds of newly graduated commandos this week as tensions with Pakistan rose sharply along the border. At a ceremony attended by senior officials, Taliban deputy prime minister Abdul Ghani Baradar said Afghanistan would not tolerate any violation of its territory and was prepared to respond to any aggression.
The Taliban Defence Ministry said the new commando units had received full ideological and military training and were ready to defend Afghanistan’s borders. Baradar warned neighbouring countries not to “test the patience” of Afghans and not to view Afghanistan territory “with ill intent.”
During the ceremony, Taliban forces carried out helicopter manoeuvres and ground tactics to demonstrate operational readiness. The ministry said any foreign force seeking to breach Afghanistan soil would face a decisive response.
The escalation follows Taliban claims that recent Pakistani airstrikes in three eastern provinces killed nine children and one woman. Taliban officials have vowed to respond “at the right time.” Pakistan has denied responsibility for the strikes.
Tensions intensified after Pakistan’s military announced that its counterterror operations this year had killed more than 1,800 militants, including 136 Afghan nationals, a figure the Taliban rejects and describes as politically motivated.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and military leadership have recently warned that their forces remain fully prepared to respond to any threat from Afghanistan. Islamabad says repeated border clashes and failed rounds of talks have heightened its concerns.
Three rounds of discussions between the two sides after heavy border fighting in October ended without progress, leaving tensions unresolved as both governments harden their positions along the frontier.
Kabul Says It Is Ready to Respond to Any Violation of Afghanistan’s Territory
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
