When the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, many in the region hoped they had changed. They had promised dialogue, inclusivity, and an end to the use of Afghan soil against any neighbour. Four years later, those hopes lie buried under the rubble of broken assurances and cross-border graves.
The Taliban’s signature on the 2020 Doha Agreement was never an offer of peace – it was a pause to win recognition and relief. They were to start intra-Afghan dialogue and keep freed fighters out of battle. Instead, the released prisoners re-joined the insurgency, and Kabul fell without a single round of genuine negotiation. What followed was not a new Afghanistan but a return to the old – one ruled by a narrow clerical elite for whom obedience matters more than justice.
Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban have built a system that erases half its population. Girls are locked out of schools after primary level, women banished from public employment, and widows left without income or support. What was once a social contract has been replaced by a code of submission. Their interpretation of religion has become a political weapon to deny education, to police speech, and to erase women from public life. This is not governance; it is systematic gender apartheid.
Since 2021, Islamabad has sent four foreign ministers, two defence delegations, and numerous special envoys to Kabul. It has delivered 836 protest notes, 225 border flag meetings, and 13 formal demarches. Yet the pattern remains unchanged: attacks intensify, apologies follow, and then silence.
Afghanistan’s intellectual and scientific landscape has collapsed with it. Thousands of female doctors, teachers, and researchers have been driven into exile. Universities that once housed vibrant debate now produce silence. The Taliban call this stability; in truth, it is stagnation born of fear. No nation can survive by eliminating its own minds.
The Taliban government remains a one-ethnicity rule in a multi-ethnic country. Pashtuns dominate every key ministry and the Kandahar Shura; Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras are symbolic additions. The promised broad-based system never appeared. The same ideology that drove two decades of war now governs from behind closed doors.
Their violations extend beyond borders. The second pillar of the Doha Agreement – that Afghan soil would not be used against others – has been shattered. Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul in 2022. UN reports detail safe houses, weapons permits, and immunity granted to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commanders. The Taliban’s intelligence network has become a logistics chain for militancy. TTP fighters move openly, Al-Qaeda sleeper cells have re-emerged, and ISIS-K operatives find safe harbour.
Between 6,000 and 6,500 TTP militants now operate from Afghan territory. Over the past year alone, 267 Afghan nationals have been killed fighting Pakistani forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Pakistan’s restraint has been tested beyond measure. Since 2021, Islamabad has sent four foreign ministers, two defence delegations, and numerous special envoys to Kabul. It has delivered 836 protest notes, 225 border flag meetings, and 13 formal demarches. Yet the pattern remains unchanged: attacks intensify, apologies follow, and then silence. The 2024 trilateral agreement with the UAE to relocate TTP fighters was reduced to a mockery. The Taliban took the funds but relocated barely a few hundred militants, no records, no oversight. The same camps thrive, the same commanders rearm, and the same NATO weapons flow through their hands.
At the same time, Kabul continues to draw millions in international aid each month. Instead of rebuilding society, that money feeds networks of patronage and terror. The regime’s propaganda presents this as self-reliance; in reality, it is foreign-funded repression masked by religious rhetoric.
Pakistan’s dilemma is now existential. To the world, Islamabad must appear diplomatic and to its own people, it must show resolve. Each attack in Waziristan or Dera Ismail Khan deepens the public anger and tests the state’s patience. How long can a neighbour absorb the violence of another’s denial?
The international community must confront what it helped create. Engagement without conditions has become appeasement. If the world wants stability in South Asia, it must demand accountability in Kabul.
As for Pakistan, the lesson is clear. Friendship with Afghanistan cannot come at the cost of national security. The Taliban must decide whether they wish to govern as a state or operate as a sanctuary for terror. There is no middle ground left. Not anymore
The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.