Afghanistan’s modern tragedy is not written in the ruins of war alone, but in the betrayal of promises that once carried the hope of peace. The Taliban, after returning to power in August 2021, presented themselves to the world as reformed actors, pragmatic rulers who would honor their written and verbal commitments to international partners. Yet, four years later, the evidence reflects a consistent pattern of duplicity, ideological rigidity, and cross-border hostility.
The same movement that pledged dialogue, inclusivity, and non-interference has instead reignited the very fears it once vowed to calm. Afghanistan today stands as a cautionary tale of how political assurances, when made to deceive, can erode trust and destabilize an entire region.
Equally troubling is the sectarian and ethnic monopoly within the Taliban administration. Afghanistan, home to at least fourteen ethnic groups, has been reduced to a Pashtun-centric theocracy. While Pashtuns form roughly 42% of the population, the government they dominate marginalizes Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, who together represent nearly half of Afghanistan’s demography.
The Kandahar Shura, the ideological nucleus of Taliban authority, is entirely Pashtun. In the 49-member cabinet, only a handful of non-Pashtun figures serve in largely symbolic roles, while all key ministries defense, intelligence, finance, and interior remain under Pashtun militant control.
Virtually every cabinet and Shura member was part of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan during the insurgency years. This ethnic and ideological concentration has made the Taliban government not a national regime but a factional enterprise, incapable of representing or reconciling Afghanistan’s internal diversity. It has also alienated ethnic minorities, some of whom have quietly resumed armed resistance in northern provinces.
The second clause of the Doha Agreement, which obligated the Taliban to prevent Afghan soil from being used against other countries, has been flagrantly violated. The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul in August 2022 was the first unmistakable proof that the Taliban had provided sanctuary to global terrorists. Subsequent intelligence and UN monitoring reports the 35th, 36th, 66th, and 68th have reinforced this conclusion, documenting Taliban support to TTP, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS-Khorasan.
The General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) has been accused of granting safe houses, movement passes, and immunity to TTP operatives in Kabul. The 2025 UN reports confirm that Saif al-Adl and Hamza bin Laden reside under Taliban protection, and that Al-Qaeda networks are being restructured from Afghan territory. Similarly, SIGAR reports note that between 6,000 and 6,500 TTP fighters are operating freely inside Afghanistan, many conducting cross-border attacks against Pakistan.
This nexus has already cost Pakistan dearly over a thousand security personnel and civilians lost their lives in 2025 alone. Despite repeated evidence and 836 protest notes, Pakistan’s diplomatic restraint has been met with Taliban indifference and continued aggression.
In 2024, a trilateral agreement between Pakistan, the UAE, and the Taliban was signed, requiring the relocation of TTP militants away from Pakistan’s border regions. In exchange, the Taliban secured financial assistance from the UAE, purportedly for the resettlement of these fighters. Yet, only a few hundred were moved, with no verification mechanisms or monitoring data shared. The outcome was predictable terror networks remained operational while funds vanished without trace.
Moreover, while the Taliban regime continues to receive $80 million monthly from the United States and additional aid from UN agencies, there has been no perceptible improvement in governance, education, or counterterrorism. Instead, reports suggest these donor funds are being diverted to TTP cadres under the guise of refugee support. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s internal environment has darkened further. UNAMA’s 2025 Media Freedom Report documents over 250 arbitrary arrests of journalists, alongside cases of torture and intimidation proving that the regime’s intolerance extends from politics to press freedom.
For Pakistan, the Taliban’s duplicity has not been an abstract concern but a tangible threat. In 2025 alone, Pakistani counterterrorism forces conducted more than 62,000 intelligence-based operations, neutralizing 1,667 terrorists, many of them Afghan nationals. In the same year, 267 Afghan fighters were identified by name and address among the dead. Notably, after operations in North Waziristan (April) and Sambaza, Zhob (August), where dozens of Afghan militants were killed, the Taliban government made an unprecedented request to retrieve their bodies an implicit admission of their complicity.
Pakistan has also identified 58 terrorist camps and staging facilities inside Afghanistan, used by both TTP and BLA under the protection of Kabul’s regime. Compounding this threat is the proliferation of NATO-grade weaponry, worth an estimated $7 billion, now in the hands of anti-Pakistan groups weaponry left behind during the U.S. withdrawal and redirected by the Taliban to strengthen regional proxies.
After years of engagement, Pakistan’s patience has been remarkable. Since 2021, Islamabad has pursued four foreign ministerial visits, two defense-level missions, five special envoy meetings, eight JCC sessions, and thirteen formal demarches to convince the Taliban to renounce cross-border terrorism.
Yet, the Taliban have treated diplomacy as a delay tactic while continuing their covert sponsorship of militancy. The international community can no longer afford to treat these violations as internal Afghan matters. If commitments made in Doha and subsequent accords are allowed to collapse without consequence, the credibility of global diplomacy itself will erode. The world must now hold the Taliban regime accountable through tangible punitive measures economic restrictions, diplomatic isolation, and cessation of aid until verifiable compliance is achieved.
Afghanistan cannot be allowed to return to its pre-9/11 role as a sanctuary for extremists, nor can Pakistan be expected to absorb the cost of Taliban deception alone. The promise of peace in the region will remain illusory until words are matched by action and until duplicity is met not with appeasement, but with accountability.
