The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan are victims of the Great Game

19 August 2026

We strongly condemn Pakistan’s airstrikes on various provinces of Afghanistan and its aggression against the territory of this country, which have resulted in the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including women and children. These aggressions must stop immediately. This is not the first time the Pakistani army has bombarded areas of Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover; during this period, such attacks have occurred more than six times, inflicting casualties on civilians.

To impose its demands on the Taliban government, Pakistan has not limited itself to bombings and military operations alone but has also used other levers of pressure. The forced expulsion of millions of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and the closure of shared borders have been among the most significant of these tools. In January and February 2026 alone, over five hundred thousand Afghan refugees were violently expelled from Pakistan, while the Taliban government has no plans or facilities for their settlement. This process adds to the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the continued closure of borders has disrupted bilateral trade, led to shortages of essential materials and price hikes, and increased the hardships of citizens’ lives.

Both ruling regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan are grappling with deep economic crises, unemployment, and poverty. In Pakistan, armed protest movements in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have challenged the country’s stability and security, and the government has responded by resorting to suppressing and killing protesters. In Afghanistan, the misogynistic and medieval Taliban regime not only lacks internal legitimacy but is also unrecognized by the international community.

In such circumstances, the rulers of both countries need war and conflict to divert public opinion from their internal crises, corruption, and betrayals. By fueling nationalist sentiments, they drive young people towards hatred and conflict to shirk responsibility towards their own people and shift the burden of blame onto the neighboring country.

This confrontation has emerged even though the Afghan Taliban themselves are considered a product of Pakistan. Over the past three decades, based on its geopolitical strategy towards Afghanistan, Islamabad has provided this group with financial, military, and political support. Pakistan has always treated Afghanistan like its fifth province and expected the ruling regimes in Kabul to align their foreign policy according to Islamabad’s wishes and interests.

But the Afghan Taliban now want to show themselves as an independent force that does not need to follow Pakistan. Their close relations with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which fights to establish a government similar to the Islamic Emirate in Pakistan, have become a major axis of tension. In the last two years, Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban of supporting the TTP, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), but the Taliban have consistently denied these accusations.

On 22 February 2026, the latest round of Pakistani aggression into Afghan territory was carried out under the pretext of fighting the TTP; a group that Pakistan labels as terrorist. However, the Afghan Taliban and the TTP themselves deny the presence of this group in Afghan territory.