ISLAMABAD: A temporary pause in cross-border hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan during Eid Al-Fitr is unlikely to hold without concrete action by Kabul against militants, Pakistani analysts said this week, warning that tensions between the two neighbors remain high after a recent surge in violence.
The pause comes days after a major escalation in conflict, including Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan that Kabul says hit a drug rehabilitation center in the capital, killing hundreds of civilians. Pakistan has denied targeting non-military sites, saying its operations were aimed at militant infrastructure. The strike has become the deadliest episode in the current phase of tensions, underscoring the risk of further escalation.
Allies-turned-foes Pakistan and Afghanistan’s worst fighting in years erupted last month, with Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan that Islamabad said targeted militant strongholds.
Afghanistan called the strikes a violation of its sovereignty that targeted civilians, and launched retaliatory operations.
This week, Islamabad announced a temporary pause in hostilities for the Eid holiday, while continuing to press Kabul to act against militant groups, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Islamabad has long accused the Afghan Taliban government of providing a safe haven to militants executing attacks on Pakistan from its soil, a charge the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul denies.
“There is no ceasefire yet,” Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States Maleeha Lodhi told Arab News.
“A pause in hostilities has been agreed, and that too Pakistan has qualified by saying military actions will resume if there is a cross-border attack.”
Lodhi said Pakistan’s long-standing demand that Kabul rein in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and prevent cross-border attacks remained unchanged.
“If it can do that, then the path will open to normalization of relations,” she said. “Words are not enough.”
Security analyst Maj. Gen. (r) Inam ul Haque also questioned whether Kabul could deliver on such commitments.
“Pakistan’s stance is that Kabul should not provide empty assurances but verifiable guarantees,” he said, adding that the key issue was the Afghan Taliban’s “ability and willingness” to act against militant groups.
“TALK-TALK, FIGHT-FIGHT”
Over the last three weeks, both countries have launched air and drone strikes against each other and also engaged in ground firing across their 2,600-km (1,600-mile) border, with each claiming to have inflicted heavy damage and killed hundreds of opposition troops, without providing evidence.
Former ambassador to Afghanistan Asif Durrani said the Eid pause was a welcome step but warned it would remain fragile without follow-through.
“This pause can evolve into a durable ceasefire only if the Afghan Taliban undertake practical and enforceable measures,” he said, adding that Pakistan wanted Kabul to curb militant networks and improve border coordination.
Although a ceasefire was reached after similar border clashes in October through talks mediated by Turkiye, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, no negotiations have taken place this time, despite calls from countries including Turkiye, China and Russia to resolve differences through diplomacy.
The Afghan Taliban had said last month that it was willing to negotiate with Pakistan, but Islamabad has shown no such inclination.
Mushahid Hussain, a former federal minister and China expert, described the Eid pause as a positive signal, saying countries including China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were encouraging dialogue between the two neighbors.
“As the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said rightly in a statement last week, Afghanistan and Pakistan are inseparable brothers and we need each other to be resolving issues through dialogue, through negotiations across the conference table,” he said.
Hussain described the conflict as “counterproductive,” saying it was neither in the interest of Pakistan nor Afghanistan.
He said Pakistan needed a two-fold strategy of “talk-talk, fight-fight.”
Still, most analysts said the situation was likely to remain tense in the foreseeable future.
Lodhi said the prospects for diplomacy were not bright for the time being.
“Most likely a situation of no war, no peace will prevail for some time,” she said.
Pakistan’s military, responding to queries about the trajectory of the conflict, said its position had already been outlined by Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry in remarks this week.
Chaudhry stressed in an interview with Geo TV that Afghanistan must not be used as a base for attacks inside Pakistan and called for verifiable mechanisms to ensure this.
“Afghan Taliban must make a clear choice between supporting groups like the TTP or maintaining a relationship with Pakistan,” he said.
