Pearl Pandya on Pakistan’s strikes against Afghanistan as border tensions escalate

Pearl Pandya, South Asia Senior Analyst at ACLED, said: 

“On Thursday night, Pakistan once again carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan's Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, and Paktika provinces, targeting alleged militant and Afghan Taliban military infrastructure. Cross-border clashes along the disputed Durand Line have continued daily since tensions escalated on 26 February, though Pakistani airstrikes had briefly paused last week as China attempted to mediate between Kabul and Islamabad. 

“Pakistan appears to have little appetite for negotiations, though, as it grapples with resurgent Islamist militancy, led by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, in its frontier regions, for which it blames Afghanistan. Its response has gone further than the last outbreak of fighting in October: Whereas earlier strikes mainly targeted militant bases, this round has focused almost entirely on Taliban military bases and ammunition depots. Such strikes would limit the Taliban’s ability to respond at the border and may also serve to constrain future militant activity. Pakistan has previously accused the Afghan Taliban of failing to adequately secure its armories, saying weapons left behind after the NATO withdrawal have reached militant groups. 

“But Afghanistan is no stranger to battling a far more powerful military adversary. Although lacking a fully functional air force, the Afghan Taliban have improvised with quadcopters and locally produced kamikaze drones, targeting areas just across the border. Following the latest Pakistani strikes, they reportedly used such drones against a military base in Pakistan’s Kohat district. Its decades of experience in waging a guerrilla insurgency could allow it to respond with more unconventional tactics, such as increasing support for anti-Pakistan militant groups.”