Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman of the Taliban in Afghanistan, recently accused Pakistan of neglecting its responsibility regarding border security and failing to cooperate over Afghan migrants. While accusation is forceful and politically beneficial for Kabul, it downplays Pakistan’s longstanding counterterrorism efforts, the Taliban’s own unmet commitments under the Doha Accord-2020 and Islamabad’s long, costly experience hosting Afghan refugees.
Mujahid’s remarks invert reality; many of the failings he attributes to Pakistan are in fact the ones the Taliban themselves have failed to address. His framing of cross-border militancy is particularly misplaced. For years, Pakistan has been the pressing issue of militants operating from Afghanistan. Islamabad has repeatedly flagged groups like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) finding sanctuary inside Afghanistan, a problem that intensified after the US withdrawal in 2021, when the Taliban regained control and militants gained more freedom of movement. International monitoring bodies documented their presence and activities on Afghan soil. These are not vague allegations but are rather based on years of regional counter-terrorism reporting.
Islamabad has spent years trying to seal its border with Afghanistan, building border fencing, upgrading surveillance and raising the issue diplomatically.
Mujahid’s suggestion that Pakistan “hasn’t taken responsibility” appears detached from reality. Islamabad has spent years trying to seal its border with Afghanistan, building border fencing, upgrading surveillance and raising the issue diplomatically. Pakistani officials have repeatedly raised the matter at every available forum because for Islamabad, the agenda has been clear and consistent, which is to prevent militants from crossing the border, staging attacks and retreating into Afghan territory.
The deal between the Taliban and the US in 2020 was presented as a path towards a more stable Afghanistan and a less permissive environment for cross-border militancy. Taliban agreed to sever ties with terrorist groups, start intra-Afghan negotiations and prevent released fighters from returning to violence. But most of those milestones remain unmet.
One of the most consequential commitments was that approximately 5,000 prisoners released would not rejoin the battlefield, under the agreement. Subsequent reports suggest many of them did. For Pakistan, which shares a porous border with Afghanistan, this isn’t theoretical; it translates into real threats to Pakistani soldiers, civilians and state infrastructure. When Kabul fails to restrain militants from within its territory, it is Pakistan that absorbs the consequences.
Just as troubling is the Taliban’s refusal to move towards inclusive governance. Its leadership remains dominated by Pashtuns and has largely excluded non-Pashtun communities from meaningful participation. That exclusion contradicts both the Taliban’s assurances to the international community and expectations raised by the Doha Accord-2020. The outcome is a government lacking broad legitimacy at home and credibility abroad.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has tried to manage the relationship. Since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in August 2021, Islamabad has chosen engagement over isolation, sending foreign and defence officials, dispatching special representatives and maintaining working-level contact to help prevent the border from becoming even more combustible. By Pakistan’s count, there have been eight meetings of the Joint Coordination Committee, more than 225 flag-meetings along the border, hundreds of formal protest notes and over a dozen diplomatic demarches to Afghan authorities on cross-border attacks. That is what a sustained diplomatic effort looks like. It is hard to reconcile such a record with the picture of an uncooperative Pakistan painted by Mujahid.
What has hindered these efforts is not Pakistan’s reluctance, but the Taliban’s refusal to transform from a militant armed group to a responsible state, accountable for its actions to the international community. Kabul has been unwilling to sever ties with international terrorist organisations. They consider it a religious duty to protect and shelter their ideological kin. Moreover, they see these groups as geo-strategic levers against neighbours. As long as Afghan territory remains a springboard for anti-Pakistan militancy, Islamabad will struggle to secure its western border, no matter how much fencing it erects or how many meetings it convenes. In that sense, it is Afghanistan under the Taliban, not Pakistan, that has failed to meet the basic obligations of a responsible neighbour.
Mujahid’s criticism of the migrant front is equally selective. Few countries have carried the burden of Afghan refugees for as long or as extensively as Pakistan. Over four decades and across multiple conflict phases in Afghanistan, Pakistan hosted more than four million Afghans, sometimes with international assistance but often under significant strain on its infrastructure, schools and health system. Afghan families enrolled their children in Pakistan’s schools and universities, many worked and ran businesses, and whole communities settled. That hospitality continued even during Pakistan’s own economic pressures and security concerns.
The narrative offered by Mujahid, that Pakistan is uncooperative, obstructing Afghan security and humanitarian needs, is the inverse of what the evidence suggests. If Kabul wants to ease tensions with Islamabad, the most effective step is not issuing public barbs, it’s doing what Pakistan has been asking for all along. That is to stop allowing Afghan territory to be used for attacks against Pakistan and start governing in a way that gives Afghans fewer reasons to flee.
The writer is a security analyst and a freelance contributor.