A forty-eight-hour truce mediated by Qatar, according to Islamabad initiated at the request of the Taliban, has temporarily halted the most serious military escalation between Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent times. In the aftermath of the explosions that rocked Kabul and Pakistani airstrikes on targets inside Afghan territory, representatives of both countries were invited to Doha to begin talks under Qatar’s diplomatic umbrella — an attempt to contain a crisis that risks spiraling quickly out of control.

Doha is once again positioning itself as a regional mediation hub: its relatively neutral stance and established ties with the Taliban leadership allow it to operate in a political space where other capitals struggle to gain access. It also enables the Taliban — once “students of theology” — to score a diplomatic victory: avoiding recognition of the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has never accepted, as an official border.

In recent days, the humanitarian and political emergency had worsened further: a Pakistani airstrike killed at least eight young Afghan cricket players while they were training on a sports field near Spin Boldak. The Taliban immediately denounced the incident as “a deliberate act against civilians,” sparking waves of outrage and increasing international pressure. Islamabad, without explicitly claiming responsibility for the attack, described it as “a tragic collateral effect” of security operations against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), accused of killing soldiers and police in Pakistan’s border regions.

Following growing tensions, the delegations in Doha announced an extension of the ceasefire, which had initially been set at forty-eight hours. Despite the announcement, diplomatic and military circles have low expectations that the truce will last: the absence of verification mechanisms, mutual distrust, and the highly political nature of the latest strikes make any verbal commitment extremely fragile.

Behind this pause lies a much broader geopolitical game in which the Afghan-Pakistani border is once again becoming a strategic pivot for opposing regional ambitions — and a stage for political messages that reach far beyond the volatile and never officially recognized frontier between the two states. Islamabad insists that the TTP, operating from Afghanistan, must be neutralized.

It all began on the night between October 8 and 9, when an air operation — still unclear whether carried out by drones or fighter jets — struck multiple targets in Kabul and in eastern border areas. The declared objective: TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud. Within half an hour, he released an audio message and later a video declaring himself alive and in Pakistan. Islamabad did not officially comment, leaving a swarm of ISI-controlled bots to attribute the attack to the generals in Rawalpindi.

While Kabul was shaken by the explosions, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was on an official visit to New Delhi — a detail far from secondary, as it completely changed Pakistan’s narrative about its “Afghan brothers.” Suddenly, the Taliban were no longer the legitimate government of Kabul that had “broken the chains of slavery,” but a terrorist group in the pay of New Delhi, using the TTP to destabilize Islamabad’s already fragile government.

Few may recall that the TTP (just like the Afghan Taliban) is a Pakistani creation. Founded in 2007 by elements of the intelligence apparatus, it was designed to be used against other sectors of the state and, more generally, whenever Pakistan needed to cash in on its usual narrative: Islamabad is the first victim of terrorism and must be armed and funded to defeat it. Attacks by the so-called Pakistani Taliban tend to increase — curiously — whenever international agreements or financing are being negotiated or reviewed.

Meanwhile, as Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was in Egypt behind Donald Trump during the signing of the Gaza agreements, chaos erupted in Pakistan with violent clashes in Lahore and Muridke between security forces and thousands of supporters of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a radical Islamist movement that had organized a march on Islamabad in solidarity with the Palestinians. Hours of fierce fighting, with assaults on vehicles, stone throwing, and gunfire, left at least five people dead and dozens injured, including TLP leader Saad Rizvi.

It’s worth noting that TLP is another extremist group, bordering on terrorism, traditionally at the military’s disposal. The army has long used it as a tool of popular pressure against governments or whenever it needed to stir unrest.

Immediately afterward, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border positions near Chaman with coordinated strikes. Islamabad responded with “precision operations” in Kandahar and Spin Boldak that killed the cricket players — not the alleged TTP training camps. For Islamabad, the timing was no coincidence but a direct political message: striking Afghanistan while the top Taliban diplomat was visiting India was meant to make clear the limits of what Pakistan is willing to tolerate.

For Kabul, the visit to India marked a significant step in normalizing relations with New Delhi. India, though discreet, has been steadily increasing contacts with the Taliban since 2022. This strategy aims to give Delhi a channel of influence over Kabul for both security and broader geopolitical reasons.

From Islamabad’s perspective, however, the Taliban’s outreach to India is a direct strategic threat. Historically, Pakistan has seen Afghanistan as a “buffer zone” and sphere of privileged influence. Seeing the Taliban at the table in New Delhi means witnessing the erosion of that strategic depth Islamabad considers its right. Statements by Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, who accused the Taliban of becoming “a pawn of Delhi,” reflect this view clearly.

For the Taliban, aligning with India has significant political and symbolic value: gaining diplomatic room to maneuver and trying to break international isolation. In a fragmented regional context, diversifying diplomatic channels is a way for Kabul to strengthen its negotiating position not only with India but also with Pakistan.

In this context, Pakistan’s air raids, border clashes, and the death of young Afghan athletes carry meaning that goes far beyond the military dimension. They are a strategic message to the Taliban leadership — a reminder that the regional balance of power cannot be redrawn unilaterally. In other words, it is a containment move aimed at restoring a balance Islamabad feels is threatened by the emerging Kabul–New Delhi understanding.

Unofficially, however, whispers suggest something else: that the Haqqani faction in government may have facilitated some of the recent developments in Pakistan’s favor, and that a broader geopolitical layer underlies the Afghanistan–India–Pakistan triangle.

Persistent rumors claim that the United States is playing an indirect but decisive role, providing intelligence and surveillance capabilities along the border. At the center of these speculations is Bagram — the former U.S. military base abandoned in 2021 but never truly absent from regional strategic discourse. Many analysts believe that whoever controls Bagram holds the key to projecting influence not only in Afghanistan but across Central Asia.

This interplay — between regional diplomacy, military escalation, and the quiet return of global power politics — opens a new chapter in the crisis. It is no longer just a confrontation between Kabul and Islamabad, but one that now involves Washington, New Delhi, Beijing, and Moscow.

The war is local, but the chessboard is much larger. The truce may hold for a while, but the message has already been sent: the contest over Afghanistan is reopening.