Afghanistan-Pakistan: Simmering Borders – Analysis
By Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
On September 19, 2024, two Pakistani soldiers were killed while another soldier sustained injuries at the Ghulam Khan Border terminal in the North Waziristan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), when Afghan border guards opened fire at them. Two Afghan border guards were also critically injured in the firing. According to Pakistani officials, the incident occurred at a time when the Pakistani side was closing the border at 7:00 PM. The Afghan border guards asked them not to close the gate, which resulted in a verbal spat resulting in firing from the Afghan side.
On September 7, 2024, at least eight Afghan Taliban soldiers, including two ‘key’ commanders, Khalil and Jan Muhammad, were killed while another 16 Taliban fighters sustained injuries during a clash between Pakistani Security Forces (SFs) and the Afghan Taliban along the border between the Kurram District of KP, Pakistan, and the Khost Province of Afghanistan. The conflict reportedly broke out in the morning of September 7, when Taliban forces attempted to construct a security outpost on the Afghan side, prompting Pakistani troops to open fire to force the other side to stop their activity. The Afghan side then attacked a Pakistani check post with heavy weapons in the Palosin area on the border. At least five Pakistan SFs personnel and seven Afghan border guards were injured in the exchange of fire, using mortar shells on both sides, along the border in the Shorko area of Kurram District in KP. The exchange of fire continued from time to time till September 9.
Earlier, in the night of September 4, there was an exchange of fire between Pakistani and Afghan border forces at least at three different locations along the international border in the Kurram District of KP, which borders Khost province of Afghanistan. Media sources quoting both Pakistan and Afghan officials reported casualties on both sides, but there were no exact numbers available.
On August 19, 2024, a Frontier Corps (FC) trooper, identified as Subedar Tariq, was killed in an armed clash with Afghan forces in the Gaznali area on the Pak-Afghan border in the Nushki District of Balochistan. A senior FC official, requesting anonymity, claimed that Afghan forces opened fire on FC personnel when they went to the Gaznali Check Post after receiving reports about damage to the fence erected by Pakistan to check infiltration from Afghanistan. There was no report of casualties on the Afghanistan side of the border.
On August 12, 2024, three Afghan civilians, including a woman and two children, were killed and three Pakistan SF personnel sustained injuries when the border forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged heavy fire after the Pakistani side objected to Afghan forces constructing a disputed check post along the Torkham border in the Khyber District of KP. Initially, light weapons were fired but later both sides used heavy weapons, including artillery, targeting each other’s positions. The exchange resulted in the closure of the border for all types of movement.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has seen a succession of two types of violent incidents: attacks by infiltrating militants on SF check posts/camps and exchanges of fire between the SFs of both sides over the issues of border fencing and construction of security posts. According to partial data compiled by theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal(SATP), since April 2007, when the first such clash was reported, there have been at least 21 incidents of clashes between SFs on both sides, in which 56 persons, including 37 SF personnel and 19 civilians, have been killed on the Pakistani side (data till September 22, 2024). The Taliban rarely confirms its own casualties.
According to theSATPdatabase, 10 incidents (including the seven mentioned above) of exchanges of fire between the SFs of both countries have been reported in 2024, till September 22, resulting in seven fatalities (Three civilians and four SF personnel) and 11 persons injured (all SF personnel), while the Afghan side conceded 19 fatalities (11 civilians and eight SF personnel) and 25 persons injured (all SF personnel). In 2023, border clashed along border had seen three incidents, resulting in two persons injured, one civilian and one SF trooper. Fatalities on the Afghan side were not known. In 2022, there was only one border clash between SFs of both countries, resulting in the death of six Pakistani civilians and injuries to another 17. Casualties on the Afghan side are not known.
Further, terrorist attacks have also been occurring along the border, in attempts to infiltrate from Afghan to Pakistani territory. According to partial data compiled by theSouth Asia Terrorism Portal(SATP), 11 violent attacks by terrorists from across the border, resulting in 35 deaths (33 terrorists and two SF trooper) and six persons injured (all SF personnel) inside Pakistan, have been reported in the current year (data till September 22, 2024). During 2023 as well, nine such incidents, resulting in 35 fatalities (18 terrorists and 17 SF personnel) and 51 persons injuries (40 terrorists and 11 SF personnel), were reported. Seventeen such incidents, resulting in 40 deaths (31 SF personnel, seven civilians and two terrorists) were reported in 2022. There were 12 such incidents, resulting in 19 deaths (16 SF personnel and three militants) were reported in 2021; seven in 2020, resulting in 11 fatalities (10 SF personnel and one militant); and another seven in 2019, with 22 fatalities (20 SF personnel and two militants).
The Pakistan Government’s unilateral efforts to erect border fencing construct border fortification along the Durand Line on the pretext of stopping cross-border infiltration, is the main reason for the clashes between the SFs of both countries over the years. Though the conflict over the legitimacy of the Durand Line – the border imposed by Imperial Britain – is more than a century old, the recent clashes linked to border-fencing started in September 2005, when Pakistan first announced that it had plans to build a 2,611-kilometre fence (1,230 kilometres in KP and 1,381 kilometres in Balochistan) along its border with Afghanistan, purportedly to check armed militants and drug smugglers moving between the two countries. But Afghanistan raised objections on the grounds that this was an attempt to make the disputed border permanent. After Kabul’s objections, Pakistani authorities temporarily put the plan on hold.
Over a year later, on December 26, 2006, Pakistan again declared its plans for mining and fencing the border, but was again opposed by the Afghanistan Government. The then Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated, on December 28, 2006, that the move would only hurt the people living in the region and would not stem cross-border terrorism.
The attempt to build the fence provoked the first skirmish in April 2007 in the then South Waziristan Agency. Pakistani SFs operating in the region had positioned a three-tier security deployment on April 11, 2007, to stop cross-border infiltration by terrorists into Afghanistan, and had fenced 12-kilometers of the border stretch with Afghanistan. However, on April 19, Afghan troops tore down the fence leading to a gun-battle, though there were no casualties. Another attempt was made in May 2007, when Pakistan erected the first section of a fence in the Lowara Mandi area of the then North Waziristan Agency on May 10, 2007, which led to cross-border firing between Pakistani and Afghan forces, in which at least seven Afghan soldiers were killed. The border fencing programme, meanwhile, was halted between 2007 and 2013, due intense pressure from terrorist active along the border areas. Later, Pakistan started excavation work on a several-hundred-kilometres-long trench along the Balochistan border in April 2013. The work has progressed rapidly since, and gained further momentum after 2017.
On April 25, 2023, at a press conference, ISPR Director General Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry disclosed that 98 per cent of the fencing work on the 2,611-kilometre Pakistan-Afghan border had been completed. He added, further, that 85 per cent of the proposed forts had also been established on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to curtail the movement of terrorists.
Despite this, much to the disappointment of the Pakistani establishment who sought to secure the western border from terrorists, especially TTP, strikes across the border continue to occur with impunity. The volatility at the Af-Pak border has increased since the return of the Afghan Taliban to power in Kabul in August 2021. Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, Director of News atThe Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, noted on May 17, 2024, that the Taliban blames Islamabad's border fence for the tensions. At the same time, Pakistani authorities allege that the TTP is exploiting the border to infiltrate into Pakistan with the Taliban’s help: “Unlike previous Afghan regimes led by Karzai and Ghani, which largely relied on verbal criticisms over border issues, the Taliban has resorted to force,” he observed, referring to former Afghan Presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai declared, on February 15, 2024, that Afghanistan would never recognize the Durand Line as a border. Speaking at a gathering in Logar on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, Stanikzai asserted that Afghanistan’s territory was still on the other side of the line: “We have never recognized Durand and will never recognize it. Today half of Afghanistan is separated and is on the other side of the Durand Line. Durand is the line which was drawn by the English on the heart of Afghans. And today our neighbouring country deports the refugees in a very cruel manner and they are being told to return to their country.”
Earlier on February 1, 2024, Noorullah Noori, the acting Taliban Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs, referred to the Durand Line as an “imaginary line” and contested the clarity of the border between the two countries. However, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch countered that the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is an internationally recognised and legally valid reality.
As long as the border issue remains unresolved between the two countries, the use of proxy forces, the harbouring and facilitation of terrorist groups, strikes across the border and clashes along it, will all continue. Given the pole positions of the two sides on the issue, however, there is little possibility of a negotiated settlement. Indeed, despite decades of support to the Afghan mujahideen, followed by further decades of support and safe haven to the Taliban, no Government in Afghanistan has ever accepted the legitimacy of the Durand Line. This is unlikely to change, creating the foundations of an irreducible conflict.
- Tushar Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management