Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a temporary truce at Doha on October 19, 2025, following which, Pakistan has reportedly opened its border at Chaman for trade with Afghanistan. On  October 17, Pakistan broke the earlier 48-hour truce by conducting airstrikes in Kabul plus in Spin Boldak and Paktika provinces.  The Taliban claimed capturing two Pakistani border posts and showed driving captured Pakistani tanks.

The October 19 truce deal was signed after Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs removed the phrase "on the border between the two brotherly countries", replacing it with "between the two brotherly countries" in the revised statement. The Taliban had called the Durand Line imaginary and said the border was not discussed as part of truce with Pakistan.  

The 2,670-km Durand Line is western mischief; leaving Pashtuns on both sides; inked by Britain’s Henry Mortimer Durand and Afghanistan’s Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, to fix  “spheres of influence” between British India and Afghan Kingdom. This was modified by the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919. However, the treaty was for 100 years but was not renewed in 1999 – rendering it void.

The TTP Factor

Pakistan is wracked in violence with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) coming home in strength to roost in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and North Waziristan. Pakistan admits 917 terrorists, 303 soldiers, 73 policemen and 132 civilians had been killed in KPK by September 15, 2025. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is continuously attacking Pakistani security forces and there is unrest in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Pakistan took umbrage to Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi visiting India and India re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. But India-Pakistan relations are in a quagmire and Muttaqi wants India to influence the US for lifting sanctions on Chabahar, which US President Donald Trump is unlikely to agree to.

With eye on elections, India made Muttaqi visit the Darul Ulum Islamic seminary in Deoband. Interestingly, Amrullah Saleh, first vice president of Afghanistan (February 2020 – August 2021), had warned India against eulogizing the hardline Deobandi ideology. It is well known that both the Taliban and TTP are for a Global Islamic Emirate under Sharia Law.  

With nine terrorist camps destroyed by India in Op Sindoor, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camps in Pakistan are being relocated deeper inside – in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. This could bring them in conflict with the TTP, unless they decide to join hands. Notably, Pakistan has formed an alliance between the LeT and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS-K), which is being handled by Pakistan’s ISI spy agency.

Threats to India

Of late, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir has been threatening India, wagging his nuclear tail, knowing fully well that in a nuclear war there will be no Pakistan left. But intelligence reports indicate 120 heavily-armed terrorists are waiting to cross the LoC into J&K, even though India has only “paused” Operation Sindoor, not terminated it.

Trump, calling Pakistan a hub of global terror in his first presidency, has already met Gen Munir thrice at the White House, and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif twice.  Shehbaz profusely lauded Trump at the 2025 Peace Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh on October 13, nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize; in a manner akin to bootlicking.

The US-Pakistan crypto deal benefits Trump’s family, Pakistan has shipped minerals to Trump, and has reportedly offered the port at Pasni for American use. Simultaneously, the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Trialogue continues and the CPEC is to be extended to Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s election to the UN Human Rights Council, despite documented human rights abuses and global terrorist links, exposes dysfunction of the international community in the shadow of the Trump Administration.  

Uneasy Truce

Notwithstanding the October 19 Afghanistan-Pakistan ceasefire deal, hostilities between the two can hardly be discounted with the Taliban not recognizing Durand Line and Pakistan having fenced and fortified that line. Afghanistan doesn’t have conventional forces but both the Taliban and TTP are adept in suicide missions and guerilla tactics. Where Pakistan can use its air force, the Taliban could acquire drones in the short term. The Taliban recently announced its military engineering division has successfully tested a Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) capable of hitting targets up to 400- 500 km.

The sponsored Indian media meanwhile continues its own narratives, like reports on October 21 that the Taliban killed 25 Pakistan soldiers (an incident that actually happened on night 11/12 October), and that India captured at least 10 intact Chinese PL-15E missiles during Op Sindoor (not one solitary Chinese PL-15E missile).

How much of Pakistan coming under Taliban-TTP influence is good for India and the region? Also, the Baloch population being small, wouldn’t expanding TTP-Taliban run counter to the Baloch independence movement? A splintering of Pakistan is also being speculated, with some uninformed hardliners in India even talking of exploiting the Wakhan Corridor - without knowing China built a functional road through it long back. Would China and the US allow disintegration of Pakistan – how much of it? Indian policymakers need to examine all these issues seriously, including how long will the Afghanistan-Pakistan truce last.   

(The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal)