Pakistan is pursuing a deliberate strategy of destabilising Afghanistan in order to advance its geopolitical objectives and revive external financial support. Drawing on recent allegations surrounding armed incursions into Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province, it contends that Islamabad seeks to portray itself simultaneously as an indispensable counter-terrorism partner and a victim of regional militancy. The author links this approach to Pakistan’s long-standing dependence on security-related foreign assistance, particularly from Western countries. The comment further suggests that efforts to weaken the Taliban government through proxy actors risk worsening regional insecurity and undermining Pakistan’s own interests. It concludes that such policies may deepen tensions with Afghanistan, complicate relations with China, and ultimately prove counterproductive for Pakistan’s strategic and economic stability.
As traditional funding sources dry up, Pakistan is trying to manufacture regional instability to leverage it for securing foreign financial support. While attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan it is framing its action as counter-terrorism and the Taliban controlled Afghanistan as sponsor of terror inside Afghanistan. By so doing, Islamabad aims to project itself as vital actor against terror in the region with the hope of reactivating Western capital flows that has historically buoyed its security-dependent economy in the past.
Pakistan is trying again to play its dirty game in Afghanistan; this time in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan Province. According to Afghan media, Pakistan sent an armed group of about 400 men into Nuristan, including former Afghan government soldiers reportedly recruited from border areas such as Chitral. Afghan authorities alleged that the group also included Daesh militants and was sent across the Durand Line “with the aim of carrying out hostile activities and creating insecurity in Afghanistan.” Reports further alleged that the fighters were backed by Pakistani intelligence agencies and Pakistani-affiliated armed groups.
Regional Instability as a lever
According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence, those former Afghan soldiers, after being recruited, were promised asylum in foreign countries and “high-paying jobs.” The ministry further alleged that after reaching Pakistan, they were transferred to camps operated by the Pakistani army and ISI, where they received “short-term military training” before being sent to Nuristan to create insecurity. The Afghan Defence Ministry claimed that Pakistani military personnel, Pakistani armed auxiliaries, and Daesh militants were also present but “fled at the beginning of the fighting.” Afghan authorities said 28 fighters were killed and 32 were captured, while the remaining fighters fled back across the Durand Line.
Pakistan has been trying every possible means to destabilise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, from conducting propaganda against it in global forums and portraying it as a terrorist regime, to launching proxy warfare. It is also making an effort to shed its own image as a structural contributor to terrorism and shift that image onto the Taliban government. It is now in the business of supporting elements to destabilise the Taliban government and seeking to bring in a new regime that can act according to its dictates. Pakistan is using every possible means to achieve its strategic objectives in Afghanistan.
Earlier, Pakistan had also tried to create trouble in Badakhshan Province in northeastern Afghanistan by allegedly supporting anti-Taliban insurgent forces. In July, Pakistan’s ISI-backed armed opposition groups launched sustained attacks in the province, including in the Zebak and Yaftal-e Payin districts, with the latter briefly falling to an opposition group before Taliban forces regained control. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid publicly alleged that Pakistan was behind the unrest, claiming that Taliban opponents had received support from Pakistan and entered Afghanistan through Chitral, and Pakistani military personnel had accompanied them during the clashes. The Taliban has also accused Pakistan of supporting and financing Islamic State (Daesh) elements along the Durand Line, alleging that they are being used to create insecurity inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan has another agenda in this: it also needs money, and that money is unlikely to come only through investment. Historically, Pakistan has received much of its direct financial support from the United States, playing the role of a midwife, either supporting terror (in Afghan jihad of the 1980s) during the Cold War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or pretending to counter terror later during the War on Terror. Such support helped sustain its economy.
Over recent decades, Pakistan has developed a structural dependence on foreign security rent and conflict-driven funding, effectively monetising regional instability. Following 11 September 2001, the United States injected over $14 billion directly into Pakistan’s military and security apparatus through Coalition Support Funds (CSF). With these traditional pipelines now largely exhausted, Islamabad appears to be manufacturing regional threat perceptions—or exacerbating instability—to re-establish its standing as a critical counter-terrorism partner for Western nations.
Historically, Pakistan’s security establishment has demonstrated a capacity to foster or fabricate the appearance of extremist threats, including under the banner of ISIS-K, only to position itself as the sole actor capable of containing them. High-level bilateral mechanisms, such as the US–Pakistan Counter-Terrorism Dialogue, serve as vital platforms to project this indispensable role. This strategy has gained urgency as traditional non-Western allies pivot away from liquidity support; while China and Saudi Arabia previously provided multibillion-dollar central bank deposits, they now limit their support to debt rollovers rather than considering fresh capital injections. Consequently, Islamabad remains bound to a restrictive $7 billion IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) while facing a critical $5 billion external financing shortfall it must urgently bridge.
Manufactured Counterterrorism Narrative
Moreover, the recent address by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where he claimed Pakistan has suffered significant casualties and $150 billion in economic losses while acting as a “bulwark” against terrorism, can also be seen in this context. In a widely publicised statement, he explicitly declared that “had these terrorists not been encountered by us, they would have been roaming on the streets of New York and London,” using this global stage to project Pakistan as an indispensable security shield for the West. In effect, Sharif was actually utilising international fear of global terror networks to ask these Western countries for money. Simultaneously, Sharif used the platform to demand that the international community pressurise the interim Afghan government to rein in transnational militant outfits, trying his best to portray Afghanistan as the ultimate source of global terrorism.
Pakistan often boasts of its sacrifices in the fight against terrorism, claiming that more than 90,000 Pakistanis have been killed by terrorism and presenting itself as a victim. But who created these monsters in the first place? It was Pakistan. Therefore, it cannot simply blame other countries for the consequences of policies it helped create.
The data provided by the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2026 report has ranked Pakistan as the country most affected by terrorism in the world. The terror that is biting Pakistan today has been used as an instrument of its foreign and security policy for decades. It has, in the past, played a critical role in destabilising the region through its subversive strategy. Therefore, instead of blaming Afghanistan and trying to destabilise it and create regional instability, Pakistan must introspect and focus on its own policies that has created so much chaos in the region. According to GTI report, Pakistan recorded 1,139 terrorism deaths, 1,045 attacks, 1,595 injuries, and a massive spike of 655 hostages in a single year. Worse yet, while global terrorism fell by 28%, Pakistan was the only country in South Asia whose security score actively deteriorated, while Afghanistan actually dropped out of the top 10 most affected countries. This should have ideally compelled the Pakistani miltablishment to change course and put an end to their familiar strategy of playing with fire. What we see instead is their propensity to use terror elements to regain their influence in Kabul.
Pakistan’s Afghan Games Could Backfire
Whatever Pakistan is doing right now by playing these dirty games will create further problems for itself and the entire region in the long run. Its all-weather partner, Bejing, is also closely watching how Pakistan is playing these games inside Afghanistan. One would not imagine policy-makers in Beijing to be stupid enough to endorse Pakistan’s bid to spawn insecurity in the region all over again, which is not in its long-term economic interest in the region. This is also important for understanding the current downturn in China-Pakistan ties, as Pakistan’s attempt to destabilise Afghanistan is undermining China’s security and long-term economic interest across the broader region. Beijing’s primary concern is that continued instability could disrupt the roughly $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and complicate plans to integrate Kabul into regional economic networks, including efforts to access Afghanistan’s estimated mineral wealth, such as the Mes Aynak copper deposit. Furthermore, China fears that Pakistan’s proxy manoeuvres could contribute to a surge in regional terrorism. It could rekindle terrorist activity by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) in China’s Xinjiang region, deepening frustration in Beijing over Islamabad’s continued border tensions.
Ultimately, Pakistan’s strategy of weaponising instability as an instrument of statecraft risks backfiring with severe costs for Islamabad. What is intended as a short-term gamble to secure financial bailouts, political influence, or strategic leverage may instead exacerbate its economic distress, alienate traditional partners, provoke a more confrontational Taliban regime, and further destabilise the wider region.
Idrees Aftab is a freelance commentator on global strategic affairs, particularly focussed on developments in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. The views expressed here are his own.
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