We opened doors when the world closed theirs. We sheltered their diplomats when Kabul fell, pleaded for frozen assets to be released, and lobbied through the UN and OIC when no one else would utter the word “Afghanistan.” We built roads in Khost, kept hospitals running in Jalalabad, and taught their children in our classrooms. We called it fraternity, not foreign policy.
Now the same border that once carried aid convoys carries bodies. The soil we once shared for survival has become a route for blood. Every few weeks, the reports come: ambushes in Khyber, explosions in Zhob, suicide bombers in Bannu.
Since the beginning of this year, Pakistan’s security agencies have counted more than four thousand militants slipping across from Afghan provinces into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and over a thousand into Balochistan. These are not refugees seeking safety. They are fighters, armed with American-made rifles, night-vision optics, and explosives left behind in the ruins of the NATO retreat.
Since the beginning of this year, Pakistan’s security agencies have counted more than four thousand militants slipping across from Afghan provinces into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and over a thousand into Balochistan.
The Taliban government in Kabul insists the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan acts alone, beyond their control. The United Nations’ own monitoring report tells a different story: Al-Qaeda camps remain active in at least six Afghan provinces; three new training sites have been established for joint TTP and Al-Qaeda operations; and the TTP’s chief, Noor Wali Mehsud, resides openly in Kabul, reportedly on a state stipend. These are not whispers of the old war. Tragically speaking, they are the logistics of a new one.
Pakistan’s patience has been deliberate and visible. It sent delegations of clerics led by Mufti Taqi Usmani to reason with Kabul. It dispatched ministers, intelligence chiefs, and tribal elders. Each time, there were promises, smiles, polite evasions – and then more coffins. The dialogue that began with brotherhood has ended in irony.
What we call restraint, Kabul reads as weakness. And while Islamabad talks, the border burns. The April skirmishes in North Waziristan, where fifty-four militants attempting to cross from Afghanistan were killed in a single night, should have been a wake-up call. So should the Mir Ali suicide blast that claimed sixteen soldiers in June, or the attacks on Bannu Cantonment last year? Yet the pattern continues. The militants regroup, rearm, and reappear from across the divide as if geography were a suggestion, not a boundary. For decades, Pakistan has carried Afghanistan’s weight. Over five million refugees housed, sixty thousand Afghan students educated, billions of rupees in tariff relief and trade access extended. We kept our borders open in the name of faith and fraternity. We believed proximity was protection. We mistook shared prayer for shared purpose. That delusion is gone.
In the official communiqués, we are told the TTP is an “internal issue.” What an elegant phrase for a bleeding wound. The men who storm our posts in Dera Ismail Khan or Zhob do not appear from thin air. They cross from a border Kabul is sworn to control. A state that shelters the enemies of another cannot hide behind semantics.
And yet, even now, Pakistan does not speak the language of vengeance. It speaks of consequences. The regulation of undocumented Afghans, the enforcement of biometric entry, and the tightening of border protocols are not punishments; they are the overdue mechanics of sovereignty. Every state has a limit to its tolerance, and ours has been tested for far too long.
The shift must now be strategic and moral. The myth of “strategic depth”, that cursed phrase of the Cold War, must die once and for all. Depth is not gained by absorbing the shrapnel of another’s chaos. For too long, we mistook generosity for strength, silence for diplomacy. But diplomacy that buries its dead without naming the cause is not wisdom.
Kabul’s growing flirtation with New Delhi completes the circle of irony. Those who once decried India’s meddling now pose for its cameras. Perhaps Afghanistan believes that shifting patrons will bring stability. It never has. India’s history in the region is not of solidarity but of convenience; friendship that ends when its purpose does.
What Pakistan faces today is not an external threat alone but a moral one. How much longer can a nation carry another’s contradictions while losing its own citizens in the process? Each attack that slips across the Durand Line is not only a military lapse but a diplomatic humiliation. And every funeral of a Pakistani soldier or policeman is a quiet reminder that our generosity has outlived its usefulness.
This is not a call for abandonment, nor for cruelty. It is a call for clarity. We will be accused of harshness. We will be told that neighbours must forgive. But what forgiveness survives when the same guns are fired again and again? Pakistan has waited long enough for reciprocity. Now, it must wait for respect.
The betrayal next door did not happen overnight. It grew from our own illusions, watered by patience and hope. But illusions, like borders, cannot be endlessly stretched. If Afghanistan chooses to remain the safe house of our enemies, then let history note that Pakistan, finally, learned to close its door.
The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.