Name: Why Pakistan is fighting the Taliban it once backed | Mapped Out
Uploaded: 2026-01-24T17:33:53.000Z
Duration: 16 min 31 s
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2025 was a deadly year for the country, the worst in a decade.

And Pakistan says those responsible are being backed by the Afghan Taliban regime.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fighting, especially at the border.

Pakistan used to have high hopes for its neighbor, Afghanistan.

But the Afghan Talib are now cozying up to Pakistan's arch rival, India.

So could the violence destabilize the entire region?

Let's start off here at the Darul Uloom Haqqania Madrasa.

It's sometimes also been called the University of Jihad.

It's where many high ranking Taliban leaders in Afghanistan were educated.

So you might think the seminary is in Afghanistan, right?

It's In Pakistan, around 100 km from the border to Afghanistan.

The Taliban movement is believed to have emerged from religious seminaries like this one, and

The Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the Cold War.

A resistance movement centered on Islam developed.

The Taliban came out of the mujahideen fighters who were fighting the Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan.

He's a senior Fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, a US Think tank.

I would argue that the Taliban was really a Pakistani project from its early days.

Pakistan, created as a Muslim nation, poured money into what would later become the Taliban.

Pakistan's powerful secret service, the isi, along with Saudi Arabia and the US Wanted to defeat the Communists.

After the Soviet withdrawal, there were years of civil war in Afghanistan.

In 1996, the Taliban movement took over Kabul.

By the way, Pakistan was one of just a few countries to recognize the Taliban government at the time.

And then there was, of course, the whole thing of the Taliban regime being toppled by a US invasion in 2001 and a long war which ultimately resulted in the Taliban being back in power 20 years later.

And again, Pakistan welcomed Taliban rule.

So with such close historic ties and common ground, why have Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban been fighting?

To understand, we need to zoom into the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The border between the two countries cuts through an area that's traditionally inhabited by Pashtuns, a large ethnic group known for its distinct language and culture.

It's a region that has always been interconnected.

There's even a friendship gate set up at a border crossing.

She's a professor for international relations in Pakistan's Peshawar, right in the border region.

And it's not just goods and families that have moved across the border.

It's also militants living inside Peshawar.

I mean, we are living that experience of being targeted by militants or terrorist groups attacking us from across the border, or living amongst us, not knowing that they are amongst us and are engaged in suicide bombing, creating instability.

The area nearby is mountainous, which means it's hard for the Pakistani government to control the border.

But Pakistan did try to manage and control the area by setting up border posts like that gate, and

by building fences, which the Afghan Taliban have reportedly tried to prevent, since they don't even recognize this border.

That's because, surprise, surprise, the border was drawn during colonial times by the British Empire.

In 1893, when today's Pakistan was still part of British India.

The border was the brainchild of this guy, Henry Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat.

And it was drawn right through the Pashtun region, as you might remember.

And Afghanistan has always rejected that.

This is really a colonial era issue for the Afghans today.

The view of the Afghan people today and all Afghan governments is that there was an unfair deal for the Afghans back then.

Afghanistan's position has always been that it's illegitimate.

No Afghan government, including the Afghan Taliban, has recognized the border as legitimate, Even though it's widely recognized internationally.

The border issue has ceded so much mistrust in the Afghanistan Pakistan relationship that it really just makes it difficult for the two sides to meet and to earn each other's trust and be willing to make concessions to get through tension points.

And that is because the border issue has always been that fundamental point of strain.

And it's fundamental to the current fighting between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban regime as well.

But it's the other Taliban Pakistan is even more worried about.

We've been talking about the Afghan Taliban, the ones in charge in Kabul.

But there's also a Pakistani Taliban, the Tehrika Taliban, Pakistan, the ttp.

It's usually hard to get current footage of the group.

This video was filmed to prove that the TTP's leader survived a Pakistani airstrike on Kabul.

The TTP formed in an area near Pakistan's border.

Until 2018, it was also known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or fatah.

Today it's part of a bigger province, but

the TTP want the area to be semi autonomous and, and

For the ttp, it's what they're fighting for.

It's also where most of their operations take place.

These are the locations of violent attacks in Pakistan just in 2025.

One of the deadliest attacks was in 2014 on an army run school in Peshawar.

And you might know one of the TTP's most prominent targets.

Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner.

She survived being shot in the head when she was just 15 after speaking out for girls education and against the Taliban.

A majority of recent TTP attacks has been against the Pakistani military and security personnel.

The government in a way is making an effort to clear all the area from all these militants.

But still because of the terrain, it is facing difficulty to crush all these militants.

The TTP wants to wear down the Pakistani state.

Okay, so there are two Taliban movements, the Afghan Taliban in Kabul who were founded with Pakistani support, and

there's a Pakistani Taliban which is fighting the Pakistani state.

And unfortunately for Pakistan, the two Taliban movements have a lot in common.

This relationship between the two Talibans goes way back.

They're not the same organization, but they're cut from the same cloth ideologically.

Under the Afghan Taliban, that has meant women are largely excluded from public life and girls are banned from regular education beyond primary school.

Several TTP members and commanders started off as foot soldiers for the Afghan Taliban.

So they'd fought together, they'd staged some attacks together in Afghanistan.

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Why Pakistan is fighting the Taliban it once backed | Mapped Out

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