In the last days of October 2025, the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has flared up again: over 18 dead and hundreds injured in clashes between armies and militiamen, which then returned with a fragile 48-hour ceasefire. A new episode that confirms how old and still unresolved the tensions between Kabul and Islamabad remain.
Situated between the Indian Ocean, the Indian subcontinent, ex-Soviet Central Asia and the greater “Broader Middle East”, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan share a border line (the so-called “Durand Line”) long well 2,640 kilometers which is a source of friction and discord from beyond 130 years. But it is not just borders and territorial claims that make relations between people complicated Kabul and Islamabad. For decades the Pakistanis have meddled in internal Afghan affairs by expertly playing the game of “divide and conquer” between the various factions that competed for power in order to obtain precious levers of power that would allow them to reach the “Finlandization” of the turbulent neighbor.
The beginning of problems between Pakistan and Afghanistan: territorial claims
The November 12, 1893at the end of the first phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan Warthe emissaries ofEmirate of Afghanistan and of theBritish Empire they signed the document establishing the so-called “Durand Line” (from the name of Sir Henry Mortimer Duranddiplomat of His British Majesty then part of the administrative body ofIndian Civil Servicei.e. the British colonial civil administration in India), the international border between the Afghan state and the “British Raj”that is, theIndian Empire dominated by London. Although this boundary has been reaffirmed, theAugust 8, 1919 with the signature of “Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919” which put an end to Third Anglo-Afghan Warin reality the Afghans have never truly accepted it, denouncing on more than one occasion its oppressive nature for them.
A direct consequence of the establishment of the “Durand Line” was the separation of the people of Pashtunwho today find themselves in the peculiar situation of constituting the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan but retain the absolute majority of their demographic basin in Pakistan, where however they are a minority faced with the excessive power of Punjabi (the true “Pakistanis” of the collective imagination). Not only that; the establishment of the “Durand Line” deprived Afghanistan of the possibility of having one outlet to the seaan element that has contributed greatly to confining “the land of the Afghans” to the circle of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world.
For these reasons several great Afghan leaders of the past, such as the king Mohammad Zahir Sharthe president Mohammad Daoud Khan and the general secretary of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzaihave tried several times to call into question the status quo by making territorial claims against the provinces of Gilgit-Baltistandel Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and, above all, of Balochistan predictably encountering firm opposition from Pakistan, which succeeded the “British Raj” in control of the former western provinces of the British colony.
Islamabad and the Taliban: different twins
Pakistan began to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan starting from 1973after a coup in Kabul led to the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the republic. Pakistani infiltration and influence operations saw a dramatic escalation during the two-year period 1978-79 with the rise to power of the communists, it outbreak of the civil war and the subsequent internationalization of the conflict following theSoviet invasion. The Soviet retreat of 1989 and the subsequent fall of the communist regime in 1992 However, they did not lead to the end of the civil war which actually took a turn for the worse.
It was then that Pakistan managed to achieve its greatest success in foreign policy by favoring the conquest of power over much of the Afghan territory by the Taliban movement, financed, armed and ideologically influenced by Islamabad. Pakistan’s direct or indirect support for the Taliban has never ceased since then, not even when following the events of 11 September 2001 a international coalition led by United States of America intervened militarily for a period of 20 years in Afghanistan in a miserably failed attempt to install a pro-Western government there.
How come there is a war between Pakistan and Afghanistan: The current situation
In the aftermath of the second seizure of power by the Taliban, which took place on August 15, 2021numerous international observers had gone so far as to hypothesize a new slide of Afghanistan into Pakistan’s geopolitical orbit. Unlike the ’90s, however, the “new Taliban” have demonstrated unusual resourcefulness in the field international chessboard greatly irritating those who had long been their “curators” within the political and military establishment of the “Country of the Pure”.
However, what really contributed to poisoning the feelings between Kabul and Islamabad was the support, sometimes overt and sometimes covert, that the Taliban began to provide to the independence movements of Balochistan and to the militant group dei Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)more commonly known as “Pakistan Taliban”. The latter, headquartered in eastern Afghanistan, were repeatedly subjected to increasingly violent Pakistani military reprisals, the last of which occurred on the night between8 and 9 October 2025and which was followed by border clashes of some importance.
It is therefore not surprising if the sum of all these opposing interests has caused in recent years, and especially starting from 2024, a resurgence of conflict around the Afghan-Pakistani border which, although not yet degenerating into open war, has nevertheless inaugurated a new hotbed of instability in the already quite complicated international panorama.
