EDITORIAL: International Crisis Group’s latest finding that Pakistan has been the country most severely affected by the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul quietly but decisively vindicates Islamabad’s position since August 2021. The report documents a sharp rise in militant violence inside Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to act against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and an increasing risk of renewed cross-border escalation. The story begins where the problem actually took shape. The Taliban’s takeover came with clear assurances to Pakistan that Afghan soil would not be used for attacks across the border. Those assurances mattered. Pakistan had played a critical role in facilitating talks that led to the end of the US-led occupation and the close of a two-decade war. The expectation was not ideological alignment or political loyalty, but basic restraint. That expectation was breached. Since 2022, militant violence in Pakistan has surged. The report records that more than 600 Pakistani soldiers and police were killed in 2025 alone, overwhelmingly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Islamabad has consistently blamed the TTP, alongside Baloch insurgent groups. Crucially, UN monitoring teams cited by the Crisis Group state that the TTP enjoys Taliban support. Kabul, meanwhile, denies that Pakistani militants even operate from Afghan territory, portraying the violence as domestic in origin. That gap between evidence and denial has steadily eroded trust. The consequences have already been felt. After 11 Pakistani military personnel were killed in a TTP attack in October 2025, Islamabad carried out cross-border airstrikes, including its first strike on Kabul, aimed at TTP leadership. Afghanistan retaliated. Civilian and military casualties followed. The report now warns that Pakistan is likely to strike again if future attacks are traced back to Afghanistan. This is not posturing. It is a clear reading of a deteriorating deterrence framework. What makes the situation more precarious is the imbalance of capability paired with the risk of miscalculation. The Taliban regime is outgunned, yet not impotent. Kabul claims missile capabilities that could reach Pakistani cities. Any such use would most certainly trigger a far stronger response. The danger, therefore, lies less in intent than in the absence of credible mechanisms to prevent escalation once denial replaces cooperation. Placed in a wider context, the report is even more sobering. It lists Afghanistan-Pakistan among 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, alongside Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan and Venezuela. It argues that the world was already sliding into a more dangerous phase before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and that his second term has so far done little to slow that momentum. Global crisis management, the report suggests, has become more transactional and less anchored in sustained diplomacy. For Pakistan, the vindication is significant. Its warnings about TTP sanctuaries were not alarmist. They reflected ground realities that have now been corroborated by an independent international body. The responsibility on Kabul is harder to avoid. It will have to appreciate and accept the fact that sovereignty requires more than asserting control over territory. It requires restraining armed actors whose actions endanger neighbours. Continued denial may serve domestic narratives, but it narrows external options and increases the likelihood of confrontation. There is also a broader lesson here. The end of a war does not end its consequences. Pakistan’s cooperation in winding down the war on terror and facilitating the American withdrawal rested on reciprocal security commitments. When those commitments are ignored, the scaffolding of regional stability weakens. The Crisis Group does not predict inevitable conflict. It does, however, describe a landscape where another major militant attack could shatter an already fragile calm between Pakistan and its neighbours. In such a setting, restraint becomes harder to sustain and escalation easier to justify. It’s also true that vindication offers little comfort when security continues to erode. And the report’s real value lies not in proving Pakistan right, but in underscoring how little time remains for course correction. Evidence is no longer in short supply. What is missing is the willingness to act on it before the next attack forces decisions that no one will fully control. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026