Pakistan-Afghan fighting escalates, raising risk of prolonged instability

By Ariba Shahid

Pakistan-Afghan fighting escalates, raising risk of prolonged instability

KARACHI, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Weeks after the Taliban's lightning offensive in 2021 wrested control of Afghanistan from a U.S.-led military coalition, Pakistan's then intelligence chief flew into the capital Kabul for talks, where the serving lieutenant general told a reporter: "Don't worry, everything will be okay."

Five years on, Islamabad - long seen as a patron of the Taliban - is locked in its heaviest fighting with the Islamist group, which Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif described on Friday as an "open war".

Regional security outlook and shifting alliances

The turmoil means that a wide swathe of Asia - from the Gulf to the Himalayas - is now in flux, with the United States building up a military deployment against Afghanistan's neighbour Iran even as relations between Pakistan and arch rival India remain on edge after four days of fighting last May.

Core dispute: allegations of militant support

At the heart of the conflict with Afghanistan is Pakistan's accusation that the Afghan Taliban provides support to militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that have wreaked havoc across inside the South Asian country.

The Afghan Taliban, which has previously fought alongside the TTP, denies the charge, insisting that Pakistan's security situation is its internal problem.

The disagreement is a reflection of starkly incompatible positions taken by both sides, as Pakistan expected compliance after decades of support to the Taliban, which did not see itself beholden to Islamabad, analysts said.

"Neither side had an honest conversation about what the relationship would actually look like. That structural misunderstanding is the seed of everything that followed," said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh and an Afghanistan expert.

Escalation dynamics and expanding strike targets

Although tensions have simmered along their rugged 2,600-km (1,615-mile) frontier for months, following clashes last October, Friday's fighting is notable because of Pakistan's use of warplanes to hit Taliban military installations instead of confining the attacks to the militants it allegedly harbours.

These include targets deep inside the country in Kabul, as well as the southern city of Kandahar, the seat of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, according to Pakistan military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry.

The clashes are unlikely to end there.

"We are in uncharted territory," said Abdul Basit,  an expert on militancy and violent extremism at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"What we are witnessing is a recipe for instability, as a result of which there will be more violence, there will be more tensions. And terrorist groups will gain strength by exploiting the chaos."

'A NIGHTMARE SCENARIO' FOR PAKISTAN

Military balance and asymmetric leverage

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has a formidable military of 660,000 active personnel, backed by a fleet of 465 combat aircraft, several thousand armoured fighting vehicles and artillery pieces.

Across the border, the Afghan Taliban has only around 172,000 active military personnel, a smattering of armoured vehicles and no real air force.

But the battle-hardened group, which took on a phalanx of Western military powers in 2001 and outlasted them, has the option to lean on insurgents like the TTP and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), moving beyond border skirmishes.

"So either the Taliban can basically take a step back from the brink, or they can step forward and continue fighting at the borderland, but also increase support for TTP, BLA, and all the other groups to operate inside Pakistan," said Avinash Paliwal, reader in international relations at SOAS University of London.

Balochistan insurgency and India-Pakistan pressure points

Based in Pakistan's largest and poorest province of Balochistan that borders both Iran and Afghanistan, the BLA has been at the centre of a decades-long insurgency, which in recent years has staged large coordinated attacks.

Pakistan has long accused India of backing the insurgents, a charge repeatedly denied by New Delhi, which has retained a robust military deployment along the border since last May.

"A two-front situation has long been a nightmare scenario for Pakistan," said former Pakistan diplomat Maleeha Lodhi. 

"For Pakistan, a prolonged breakdown in relations (with Afghanistan) compounds its security challenge, given the unstable situation on the eastern frontier with India."

Diplomacy, mediation efforts, and prospects for compromise

Although a raft of countries with influence - including China, Russia, Turkey and Qatar - have indicated an openness to help mediate the conflict, all such efforts have been met with limited success so far.

"The challenge for now is that there's a huge gap between the expectations of the two sides," said Ibraheem Bahiss, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group focusing on Afghanistan.

"We need to somehow bridge that to come to a more realistic compromise that's both doable and digestible for both sides."     

(Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; editing by Philippa Fletcher)