Why is Pakistan making India a key figure in its dispute with the Taliban?

Islamabad, Pakistan – On October 28 aft negotiators from Pakistan and Afghanistan deed a partition successful talks to widen their fragile ceasefire aft deadly borderline clashes, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif blamed a 3rd state that wasn’t adjacent contiguous during the dialogue: India.

In a tv interview, Asif claimed that India had “penetrated” the Afghan Taliban leadership. That, helium insisted, was the crushed for the escalation successful tensions betwixt Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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He complimented the Taliban enactment astatine the talks successful Istanbul. “But the radical successful Kabul pulling the strings and staging the puppet amusement are being controlled by Delhi,” Asif charged. “India wants to prosecute successful a low-intensity warfare with Pakistan. To execute this, they are utilizing Kabul.”

The defence curate presented nary grounds to backmost his assertion that India was propping up the Taliban to situation Pakistan. But his comments correspond a increasing effort by Pakistan to represent its tensions with Afghanistan arsenic the result of a increasing relationship betwixt the Taliban and India.

As Pakistani and Afghan troops were clashing on the borderline earlier successful the month, Asif said the Taliban was “sitting successful India’s lap”. Islamabad has accused the Taliban of allowing anti-Pakistan equipped groups similar the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to run from Afghan ungraded and has claimed – again without nationalist grounds – that India is down the TTP.

The Taliban enactment has rejected the accusation that India has had immoderate relation successful the situation betwixt Pakistan and Afghanistan and has denied immoderate work successful the TTP’s repeated attacks connected Pakistani soil.

Still, analysts said, the determination by Pakistani leaders similar Asif to invoke India arsenic an alleged shadowy villain pulling the strings of the Taliban underscores the heavy unease successful Islamabad implicit ties betwixt New Delhi and Kabul. For Pakistan, wedged betwixt Afghanistan to the westbound and India to the east, New Delhi’s expanding footprint successful Kabul is simply a root of heavy suspicion.

As Pakistani and Afghan negotiators hole to conscionable successful Istanbul connected Thursday for the adjacent circular of talks that Qatar and Turkiye are mediating, India is progressively the elephant successful the room, analysts said.

Regional rivalries

When a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck bluish Afghanistan connected Monday, 1 of the archetypal countries to connection assistance was India.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar phoned his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, and New Delhi shipped 15 tonnes of nutrient to quake-hit Balkh and Samangan provinces. Medical supplies, helium said, would travel soon.

Jaishankar’s outreach came conscionable a fewer days aft Muttaqi completed a six-day sojourn to India, the archetypal by an Afghan Taliban person to New Delhi since the radical seized powerfulness for a 2nd clip successful Kabul successful August 2021.

The sojourn besides underscored a wider re-engagement betwixt India and the Taliban successful caller years, capped by New Delhi’s determination past period to reopen its embassy successful Kabul.

The determination scenery is precise antithetic from 4 years agone erstwhile the Afghan Taliban returned to power. At that time, India had paused astir of its diplomatic operations successful Afghanistan portion Pakistan’s power successful Kabul was wide seen arsenic having increased.

For years, Pakistan had been the Taliban’s superior patron. India, for its part, agelong regarded the Taliban arsenic a Pakistani proxy. It accused the radical and its allies of repeatedly targeting Indian diplomatic posts successful Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif from 2001 to 2021 erstwhile the Taliban was retired of powerfulness and was warring US forces and the Afghan governments that Western troops supported.

Islamabad’s longstanding doctrine of “strategic depth” is rooted successful the military’s tendency to wield leverage successful Afghanistan and blunt India’s power successful South Asia.

Since 2021, however, the Taliban person pursued a much conciliatory posture towards New Delhi.

C Raja Mohan, a erstwhile subordinate of India’s National Security Advisory Board, precocious wrote successful his column for Foreign Policy magazine that India’s re-engagement with Kabul since 2021 has been “cautious, pragmatic and deliberately quiet”.

This shift, however, has unnerved Islamabad, particularly arsenic Pakistan present faces information threats connected some its borders.

The Pahalgam onslaught successful April, which killed astatine slightest 26 radical successful Indian-administered Kashmir and for which India blamed Pakistan-based groups, became a flashpoint.

India’s retaliation 2 weeks aboriginal escalated tensions betwixt the nuclear-armed rivals and resulted successful a four-day struggle successful May.

Five days aft a ceasefire, Jaishankar called Muttaqi to explicit his appreciation for Afghanistan’s condemnation of the Pahalgam onslaught and to reiterate enactment for Afghan development.

“Underlined our accepted relationship with the Afghan radical and continuing enactment for their improvement needs. Discussed ways and means of taking practice forward,” the Indian outer affairs curate wrote connected his X account.

After clashing with India successful May, Pakistan besides engaged successful a weeklong combat with Afghanistan that took spot portion Muttaqi was visiting India.

The warring yet ended done a ceasefire, which was mediated by Qatar and Turkiye implicit two rounds of talks successful Doha and Istanbul. But the bid remains tenuous astatine best.

Deeper anxieties

Yet immoderate analysts argued Pakistan’s concerns bespeak longstanding strategical anxieties alternatively than caller developments with Afghanistan.

Amina Khan of the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad said Pakistan had expected the Taliban not to make “space oregon vacuum” for India, an anticipation that has not been met.

Khan noted that the caller sojourn by Muttaqi to India resulted successful beardown statements that were issued not lone by the Afghan authorities but besides Indian officials, which led to an summation successful Pakistani apprehensions.

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, successful quality briefings past period said that portion India was intimately monitoring the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderline tensions, it was Pakistan’s “old practice” to blasted its neighbours for its interior failures.

“Pakistan is infuriated with Afghanistan exercising sovereignty implicit its ain territories. India remains afloat committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independency of Afghanistan,” Jaiswal said connected October 16.

Khan, though, said that ultimately, Pakistan needs to presumption its narration with Afghanistan autarkic of ties with different nations.

“Pakistan has a bilateral narration with Afghanistan, and that should beryllium viewed successful implicit isolation,” she told Al Jazeera. “Similarly, contempt the tensions and clashes, India-Pakistan ties should besides beryllium viewed independently without including the Afghan factor.”

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar hands implicit a symbolic cardinal aft making a acquisition of ambulances to Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi successful New Delhi, India, connected October 10, 2025 [Handout/S Jaishankar connected X via AP Photo]

Competing narratives

Pakistan has agelong accused India of supporting unrest successful its southwestern state of Balochistan, wherever separatist groups specified arsenic the Baloch Liberation Army and Baloch Liberation Front  person fought for secession.

Islamabad pointed to the apprehension of erstwhile Indian navy serviceman Kulbhushan Jadhav successful March 2016 successful Balochistan arsenic impervious of India’s meddling. New Delhi denied the allegations and called them baseless.

But the Pakistani authorities has besides linked a caller emergence successful unit crossed Pakistan – particularly successful Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, some of which stock the country’s 2,600km-long (1,615-mile-long) borderline with Afghanistan – to equipped groups operating from Afghan territory.

Islamabad, successful particular, accused the Taliban of providing harmless havens connected Afghan ungraded to the TTP, which is often called the Pakistan Taliban and has claimed a bid of deadly attacks connected Pakistani ungraded successful caller years. The TTP, which emerged successful 2007, is chiseled from the Afghan Taliban but shares ideological affinities.

This year, however, Pakistan’s authoritative messaging has progressively framed some Baloch separatists and the TTP arsenic Indian-sponsored proxies, a rhetorical determination intended to necktie disparate threats to a azygous outer adversary, analysts said.

Former Pakistani diplomat Asif Durrani told Al Jazeera that leaders of Baloch groups had “proudly acknowledged” Indian assistance and alleged New Delhi supported the TTP done intermediaries from 2001 to 2021. Pakistan has not offered immoderate nationalist impervious to backmost its claims of Indian enactment for the TTP.

Now with ties with the Afghan Taliban improving, Durrani said India would “be capable to manoeuvre successful Afghanistan”.

“I don’t deliberation they are needfully dictating presumption to [the] Afghan Taliban, but it is apt a lawsuit of quid pro quo wherever Indians volition springiness assistance to them successful lieu of [the] Taliban looking the different way.”

Strategic suspicion

Ibraheem Bahiss, an expert astatine the International Crisis Group, said Pakistan’s subject constitution tends to presumption Afghanistan chiefly done an Indian lens.

“The Pakistani information constitution does not spot Afghanistan itself arsenic an existential threat. But it is surely compounded by the thought of a overmuch larger and potent menace that is posed by India. And successful that context, Afghanistan does go a overmuch bigger interest for policymakers successful Islamabad,” helium told Al Jazeera.

Bahiss added, however, that it was hard for Pakistan to backmost its assertion that India was down specified divers groups arsenic the TTP and Baloch separatists.

“TTP stock ideological, societal and linguistic connections to the Afghan Taliban, but the Baloch groups are connected the wholly other extremity of the spectrum with their secular outlook,” helium said.

“When you assertion that India and the Taliban, 2 entities with a bitter history, are coming unneurotic to enactment 2 wholly disparate groups, that is not a precise believable, cohesive narrative.”

Yet Islamabad treats the 2 relationships – with Kabul and with New Delhi – arsenic mutually reinforcing threats.

Khan warned that caller statements by Kabul and New Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting “terrorism” suggested an emerging, if tacit, convergence of interests, which she described arsenic a “marriage of convenience”.

Risk of escalation

While Pakistan’s eastbound borderline with India has been quiescent since the May ceasefire, relations person been tense.

Both sides person traded claims of battlefield success, including conflicting assertions astir craft losses, and ramped up their rhetoric.

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh warned successful October that immoderate aggression successful the Sir Creek country would beryllium met with a “resounding effect that volition alteration some past and geography”.

The Sir Creek portion is an astir 100km-long (62-mile-long) tidal estuary betwixt Indian Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch and Pakistan that has agelong been disputed betwixt the 2 neighbours.

On October 27, Singh told soldiers India indispensable stay acceptable for a “warlike” situation, citing lessons from the May conflict.

Pakistan’s service chief, General Asim Munir, issued a counterwarning astatine a passing-out parade astatine Pakistan’s premier subject academy connected October 18.

“The onus of ensuing escalations, 1 that whitethorn yet carnivore catastrophic consequences for the full portion and beyond, volition squarely prevarication with India,” helium said. “Should a caller question of hostilities beryllium triggered, Pakistan would respond overmuch beyond the expectations of the initiators.”

Both countries person deployed forces successful the Arabian Sea and are conducting large exercises.

Seema Ilahi Baloch, a erstwhile Pakistani ambassador who has participated successful informal talks with Afghanistan, said the timing of India’s re-engagement with Kabul adds to Pakistan’s unease.

“The warfare of words betwixt Pakistan and India volition go stronger successful the coming days, and immoderate aboriginal clash cannot beryllium ruled out,” she told Al Jazeera.