At the conclusion of the third round of talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan, mediated by Turkiye and Qatar at Istanbul on 7thNovember 2025, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan issued a comprehensive statement expressing gratitude for the brotherly countries and disappointment for the Afghan regime.
Ironically, since the Taliban resumed charge in Afghanistan, there has been sharp surge in terrorist attacks emanating from Afghan soil on Pakistan. Despite suffering invaluable causalities, Pakistan exercised maximum restraint and did not retaliate. Rather, Pakistan had always intended to constructively engage with Afghanistan so as to enable it to become a stable, peaceful and prosperous country of the region. Nevertheless, in October 2025,Pakistan had to unleash punitive strikes against the terror training camps, facilitators and abettors inside Afghanistan.
Following the repeated requests of ceasefire by the Afghan regime and respecting the mediation efforts of the brotherly countries, Pakistan agreed to the ceasefire. All the three rounds of mediation, first one at Doha and next two at Istanbul ended non-conclusively owing to four broad reasons; firstly, Afghan leadership did not hold the decision power with them, as at number of occasions they retreated from their agreed upon view point after consulting Kabul; secondly, the Afghan leadership did not have the clear agenda for the negotiations as they kept changing their goal posts every now and then; thirdly, their decisions were vividly being influenced by India and fourthly, instead of addressing the core issue to not to allow use of Afghan territory for terrorist attacks against Pakistan, the Taliban regime kept on shying away from committing concrete and verifiable actions against the perpetrators.
Interestingly, in a stark contrast to their founding ideology of radical Islamism, Taliban regime has acted as the proxy for the two radically anti-Muslim states i.e. India and Israel against an ideologically Muslim neighbour, Pakistan. Particularly, Israel has been the new-found love for Afghanistan. In January 2022, Israel’s Foreign Ministry used Mr Sylvan Adams, the so-called philanthropist to donate USD 500,000 through the UNHCR for the Afghan refugees. Later on, Afghan spokesman Sohail Shaheen appeared on Israeli state television ‘KAN TV’, propagating “normalization of ties” with Israel. The media reports suggest that Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani, who had USD 10 million head-money, was welcomed in Abu Dhabi to meet his Israeli counterparts.
Interestingly, Israel has established an Afghan enclave within its eastern city of Ra’anana with dedicated schools and restaurants. It’s also a public knowledge that Israel has established its foothold in Afghanistan through so-called philanthropist NGOs like IsraAID and Shea foundations which covertly facilitated extradition of 167 ‘high-value’ intelligence operators from Afghanistan in 2021. These NGOs are particularly active in the neighbouring provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika; providing intelligence, logistics and strategy to the TTP and are considered launchpads for committing terrorism inside Pakistan.
Notwithstanding their adventurism and terrorism, both India and Afghanistan felt naturally aligned to form an evil partnership against their common neighbour to wage 5th Generation war. This arrangement was also aligned with the Chanakya’s principle of forming alliances with the enemies of one’s neighbours also known as the ‘Circle of States’ or ‘Mandala Theory’, outlined in his treatise on statecraft and politics ‘Arthashastra’. Particularly, in the aftermath of four days war (6/7-10 May) with Pakistan,
Indian geopolitical and diplomatic isolation was cracked both by Afghanistan and Israel. Israel kept India alive by providing military hardware, training, intelligence and strategy while Afghanistan provided the strategic, political and diplomatic space by conducting exchange of leadership visits and harbouring intelligence outfits. Nevertheless, before opting to continue as the I2 proxy, people of Afghanistan may be reminded of a few inevitable facts: (i) that one can change friends but not the neighbours; (ii) Afghanistan shares over 2450 km international border with Pakistan with more than half being shared by the Pashtuns spread across both sides; (iii) being the land locked country, Pakistan is its gateway to Middle East, Europe and beyond for trade and connectivity; (iv) Pakistan is the lens through which rest of the world can see Afghanistan, particularly the Muslim world; (v) Taliban regime can win dearly required political legitimacy from the Global Powers through Pakistan; (vi) confronting a nuclear powered strong neighbour duly aligned with the Global Powers means standing on wrong side of the history; (vii) historic, cultural and religious convergences between the people of both countries are indispensable; (viii) history reveals that the mantra of defeating super powers in Afghanistan was possible only because of Pakistan; (ix) sustainable development, progress and prosperity is possible through peaceful and friendly neighbourhood.
Ironically, Indo-Israel-Afghan (I2A) nexus has been squarely involved in state-sponsored terrorism to crush political dissent. So far; Pakistan has suffered over 80,000 civilian and military casualties from Afghan-sponsored terrorism, over 100,000 Kashmiri freedom fighters have been killed by the Indian state terrorism since 1989’s ‘Intifada’ while since October 2023, over 71,300 Palestinians have lost their lives in Gaza. Critical analysis of the geopolitical environment reveals thatI2A nexus has been attempting to disturb the peace and security and strategic balance of the region. They have pieced together an unholy partnership against Pakistan to conspire a triad of proxy, terror and belligerence to cause instability. However, it can be concluded that people of the region in general and particularly of Afghanistan are likely to be the ultimate sufferers.
—The writer is a retired Air Officer from the PAF and currently serving at the DHA Suffa University (DSU), Karachi.
