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Pakistan's Afghan dilemma
Initial elation at the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year has given way to frustration over revival of old territorial disputes and recent militant attacks.
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A Pakistani soldier stands guard outside the Kitton outpost on the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan in 2017.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Sajjad Ashraf
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The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August has caught Pakistan in a terrible bind - it has to bear the continuing fallout from the collapse of the previous government and its replacement by a regime which no country recognises.
What's more, the new rulers in Kabul have their own axe to grind with Islamabad and are giving Pakistan security headaches - earlier this month, five Pakistani soldiers were killed at a border post in Khurram district by militants inside Afghanistan. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also called the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the deaths. Islamabad warned that it "expects that the interim Afghan government will not allow conduct of such activities against Pakistan in future".
