As they say, life comes full circle; Pakistan just realised it firsthand. For decades, Pakistan’s security establishment pursued a hypocritical Afghan approach of distinguishing between “good Taliban” and “bad Taliban”. Those furthering Pakistan’s interests, especially in Afghanistan and Kashmir, are deemed ‘Good Taliban’, while those working against Pakistan are deemed ‘Bad Taliban’. This dual-track strategy, which once appeared to offer short-term geopolitical leverage, has now come full circle. The surge in instability in Pakistan post the fall of Kabul and the recent clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan underscore how the very instruments once viewed as assets by Pakistan have transformed into existential challenges. This piece examines the origins, logic, and consequences of this dual policy, tracing how a tactical calculation in regional geopolitics has culminated in an entrenched internal insurgency and a complex security dilemma for Islamabad.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT: GENESIS OF THE ‘”TWO TALIBAN” POLICY
The origins of Pakistan’s dual Taliban approach date back to the 1990s, when Islamabad saw the rise of the Afghan Taliban as a strategic asset. Post-Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s deep state viewed the emergent Taliban movement as a means of securing “strategic depth”—the notion that a friendly regime in Kabul could prevent encirclement by India. This thought persisted post 9/11, even as Islamabad formally joined the U.S.-led “War on Terror”. What carried on hence was a series of double dealings, backstabbing and duplicity. Pakistan, on one hand, assisted the US to quell the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for dollars while providing safe sanctuaries to several Taliban factions. This duplicity helped Pakistan maintain influence in Afghanistan, but it also sowed the seeds of internal instability.
EMERGENCE OF THE TEHREEK-E-TALIBAN (PAKISTANI TALIBAN)
As a fallout of Pakistan’s Afghan approach, the Pakistani version of the Taliban – Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan – came into existence in 2007. It became an umbrella movement of extremist factions that turned its guns on the Pakistani state. Many of its cadres were radicalised by Islamabad’s own policies and by spillover effects from the Afghan war. TTP unleashed a series of violence against the Pakistani state. Bombings, assassinations, and high-profile attacks pan-Pakistan had become a daily affair. By the 2010s, TTP attacks had spread across the country—from Karachi to Peshawar—culminating in the 2014 Army Public School massacre, where more than 130 children were killed. This attack showed the Pakistani establishment a mirror to its failed Taliban policy. Consequently, Pakistan’s military launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb, a large-scale offensive against TTP. This weakened TTP for a while, but the ideological and logistical infrastructure persisted due to its ties in the Afghanistan.
RETURN OF AFGHAN TALIBAN: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
The Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021 was perceived as a vindication of their decades-long strategy by Pakistan. Many believed that a friendly Taliban government in Kabul would keep the border calm and restrain the TTP. Instead, their hopes fall flat in no time. The Afghan Taliban, bound by ideological and tribal ties, refused to act decisively against the TTP. From sanctuaries inside Afghanistan, TTP fighters began regrouping and launching attacks in Pakistan’s tribal regions and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Islamabad now faces a more lethal, rejuvenated TTP. By 2023, violence in Pakistan’s northwest had surged to levels unseen since 2015. Checkpoints, army convoys, and police outposts became frequent targets. Peace talks mediated by Kabul repeatedly collapsed. The Taliban’s return — once hailed as a shrewd strategic win — had exposed Pakistan’s greatest miscalculation: it had overestimated its influence and underestimated the ideological bond between militants on both sides of the border.
THE FALLOUT: AFGHAN FIASCO
The fallout from Pakistan’s two-tiered Taliban policy can be understood across four interrelated dimensions:
SECURITY REVERSAL: Pakistan faces an emboldened insurgency that exploits both geography and governance gaps. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, there has been a year-on-year spike in fatalities due to TTP in Pakistan. In 2021 the fatality toll was 301; 527 in 2022; 1513 in 2023; and 1363 in 2024. The re-emergence of militancy has strained the military’s counterinsurgency capacity. The recent bombings of Kabul by Pakistan expose the desperation and incapability of Pakistan to curb the TTP onslaught within Pakistan.
DIPLOMATIC ISOLATION: Islamabad’s influence over the Taliban regime has proved far weaker than anticipated. Frustrations with Kabul have led to escalating border tensions, even as Pakistan’s credibility with international partners — including China and the Gulf states — has been undermined by persistent instability. The failure of recent Pak-Afghan peace talks in Doha and Istanbul is the reflection of Pakistan’s dwindling diplomatic influence in the region.
ECONOMIC REPERCUSSIONS: The resurgence of violence threatens major infrastructure initiatives, including projects under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Due to surging law and order instability, CPEC has not been realised as expected. Deaths of Chinese workers had also worsened the economic outlook of the project. Currently, CPEC has been stalled with no new investments from China. The recent rejection of the ML-1 project by China is the reflection of a worsening security crisis in Pakistan.
CONCLUSION: FROM STRATEGIC DEPTH TO STRATEGIC DILEMMA
Pakistan’s gamble of de-hyphenating Taliban as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ was never an act of wisdom rather an act of desperation. By exercising terrorism as an instrument of its foreign policy, Islamabad allowed extremist ideologies to embed deeply within its borders. The “good Taliban–bad Taliban” distinction may have yielded tactical advantages in the short term, but it eroded the state’s monopoly over violence and blurred the boundary between proxy and adversary. Today, insurgency is no longer a frontier issue but a national one, with attacks being carried out in mainland Punjab. Pakistan’s miscalculation of underestimating the tribal and ideological ties between TTP and the Afghan Taliban has cost it dearly, as has its Afghan Taliban, which gained strategic depth within Pakistan. Today, Pakistan’s greatest challenge is no longer distinguishing between “good” and “bad” Taliban but confronting the uncomfortable truth that both were products of its own strategic imagination.
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