For twenty years Pakistan sheltered the Afghan Taliban while they fought the Americans, expecting a friendly government in Kabul when they won. They won in 2021. Since then attacks inside Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban, a separate movement of the same school, have risen every year, launched, Pakistan says, from Afghan soil with the new government's blessing. Pakistan began bombing Afghanistan in 2024, fought border battles with it in 2025, and in February 2026 declared itself at open war. Beneath the quarrel lies a border that no Afghan government, this one included, has ever accepted.
The wider conflict and each side's full account: India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Where it stands · September 2026
Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan on 21 September. Accounts differ on the dead: civilians, and 28 militants. On 24 September Pakistan struck 10 sites in Afghanistan after drone attacks. Clashes erupted again along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on 25 September. On 27 September Afghanistan said 28 fighters were killed after crossing from Pakistan; Islamabad denied ties to them.
What the dispute is about
The sanctuaries. Pakistan says several thousand Pakistani Taliban live, train and plan in eastern Afghanistan. United Nations monitors say the same. Kabul says it shelters no one and that Pakistan's war is Pakistan's.
The line. The border of 1893 runs through the Pashtun lands. Pakistan has fenced it. Afghan governments of every kind have called it illegitimate, and Taliban fighters have torn parts of the fence down.
The refugees. Pakistan hosted millions of Afghans for forty years. Since late 2023 it has expelled more than a million, saying they are a security risk. Kabul and aid agencies call it collective punishment.
