Jerusalem, April 25 — Pakistan's aggressive policy toward the Afghan Taliban is increasingly being viewed as a strategic move to undermine the deepening ties between Kabul and New Delhi, with Pakistan's Defence Minister going so far as to claim that the Taliban has transformed Afghanistan into an "Indian colony". A detailed report by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), published on Saturday, April 25, warns that the spiralling instability along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border poses grave risks to regional security, Indian infrastructure investments, and connectivity corridors linking India with Central Asia.

Escalating Armed Conflict: What's Happening on the Ground

The JISS report describes the current Pakistan-Afghanistan armed conflict as the most serious escalation between the two nations since the Taliban's return to power in August 2021. Fighting has been ongoing since late February, with both sides trading threats and launching cross-border strikes.

Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghan territory dealt the final blow to a fragile ceasefire that had been brokered through regional mediation in October 2025, effectively pushing both countries toward what analysts are now calling "open warfare". Official casualty figures from both sides remain unverified and disputed.

The report states: "The collapse of mediation efforts and the shift toward open warfare attest to the depth of the rift and the failure of diplomatic mechanisms to stabilise the shared border."

Pakistan's Miscalculated Taliban Strategy

When the Taliban recaptured Kabul in 2021, Islamabad had anticipated a significant "strategic dividend" — expecting the new Afghan government to rein in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has waged a brutal insurgency inside Pakistan for over two decades.

That expectation collapsed spectacularly. Instead of curbing the TTP, the Taliban provided the group with operational space, and TTP attacks surged to a decade-high record — with over 2,400 fatalities among Pakistani security forces in 2025 alone. This represents one of the deadliest years for Pakistan's military and paramilitary personnel in recent history.

The JISS report notes that Islamabad's long-standing leverage over the Taliban — built over decades of ISI support and sanctuary — has now been almost completely eroded, leaving Pakistani policymakers with few diplomatic tools and an increasingly militarised response.

The India Factor: Kabul-New Delhi Ties Alarm Islamabad

A critical dimension of this conflict, largely underreported in mainstream coverage, is the India-Afghanistan strategic alignment that has been quietly deepening since the Taliban consolidated power. Pakistan's Defence Minister's claim that Afghanistan has become an "Indian colony" — while hyperbolic — reflects genuine alarm in Rawalpindi and Islamabad over New Delhi's growing footprint in Kabul.

India has historically invested heavily in Afghan infrastructure, including the Salma Dam, the Afghan Parliament building, road networks connecting Afghanistan to Iran's Chabahar Port, and multiple educational and health facilities. These projects give India both soft power influence and a strategic stake in Afghan stability.

If Afghanistan descends into deeper chaos, Indian development projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars face direct threats — and so does India's broader vision of a trade and connectivity corridor bypassing Pakistan to reach Central Asia via Afghanistan and Iran.

The Mutual Blame Cycle: TTP, Baloch Separatists, and ISIS

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are locked in a toxic cycle of mutual accusation that shows no sign of breaking. Islamabad insists that the Taliban is sheltering TTP militants — a group originally formed two decades ago to support the Afghan jihad against U.S. forces but now turned against the Pakistani state — as well as Baloch separatist fighters seeking independence from Pakistan's southwestern province.

Kabul, in turn, accuses Pakistan's intelligence apparatus of providing sanctuary and support to ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) operatives who carry out deadly attacks inside Afghanistan, directly undermining the Taliban's claim to have restored order and security.

This accusation-counteraccusation dynamic has made third-party mediation nearly impossible, as neither side trusts the other's stated intentions or is willing to make verifiable concessions.

Regional and Global Implications

The JISS report underscores that the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict is not a bilateral issue — it has profound consequences for the entire region. A destabilised Afghanistan risks becoming a global jihadist hub once again, with militant groups exploiting the power vacuum to radicalise and recruit across South Asia and Central Asia.

For India, the stakes are particularly high. Beyond the immediate threat to its Afghan investments, the conflict disrupts New Delhi's International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) ambitions and its efforts to reduce strategic dependence on Pakistan-controlled overland routes. A stable, India-friendly Afghanistan is central to India's Central Asia policy.

Notably, this escalation comes at a time when India-Pakistan tensions remain at a historic high following the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025, adding yet another layer of geopolitical complexity to an already volatile regional environment. As both the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict and India-Pakistan standoff evolve simultaneously, the risk of a broader regional conflagration — drawing in China, Iran, Russia, and Central Asian states — cannot be dismissed. Observers will be watching closely for any renewed mediation attempts and whether Washington or Beijing steps in to prevent further escalation.