Pakistan Vs. Afghanistan

Order Jamie Glazov’s new book, ‘United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas’: HERE.

Whenever Muslim states war with each other, the most sensible reaction by non-Muslims is to wish that that war would go on for as long as possible, using up men, materiel, and morale on both sides. The aggression that otherwise would be visited on non-Muslims is instead expended on warfare with fellow members of the umma. The Iran-Iraq war lasted for eight years, from 1980 to 1988, and caused more than a million casualties on both sides. In addition, both parties spent a total of one trillion dollars. At the end of the war, the militaries of both Iran and Iraq were exhausted. It was a time when non-Muslims should have been heartened at such losses. They did not have a dog in that fight; it was the fight itself that benefited the West.

There have been other intra-Muslim fights: the war of West Pakistan on East Pakistan in 1971, with East Pakistan successfully resisting the West Pakistani troops who engaged in genocide as they murdered 3,000,000 Bengalis; the continuing war in Yemen between the Shia Houthis, backed by Iran, and the Sunnis of the National Government, backed by Saudi Arabia, that so far have resulted in 377,000 deaths; the current war in Libya between the rival forces based in Tripoli and Tobruk; the war, now subsided, between Morocco and Algeria over control of the Western Sahara; the genocidal war in Sudan between Muslim Arabs and black, mostly Muslim, Africans, leading to the breakup of Sudan into two states — Sudan and South Sudan; the war unleashed on Kuwait by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who briefly annexed it as the “19th province of Iraq”; the war of Arabs against Kurds in Operation Al-Anfal, in Iraq, and now, we can add another war, still small but likely to grow bigger, between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been engaged in a campaign of rounding up and forcibly expelling three million Afghans — including some who were born and raised in Pakistan — back to Afghanistan. In the meantime, as a response to what is seen as Pakistan’s hostility, the Taliban (who long ago sought refuge in Pakistan when the Soviet Union was fighting them in Afghanistan) have been conducting terror attacks in Pakistan, then hastening back to Afghanistan. Now the Pakistanis are fed up, and have started attacking the Taliban inside Afghanistan. More on this latest example of Muslim-Muslim violence can be found here: “Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban says Pakistan strikes kill, injure dozens,” Reuters, February 21, 2026:

 Pakistan said it launched strikes on militant targets in Afghanistan after blaming recent suicide bombings – including assaults during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan – on fighters it said were operating from its neighbour’s territory.

Women and children were among the dozens killed and injured in Saturday’s attacks, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban said, in remarks Reuters could not verify. Its defence ministry vowed to respond.

The strikes mark a sharp escalation in tensions just days after Kabul released three Pakistani soldiers in a Saudi-mediated effort to calm relations following months of clashes along the rugged frontier.

Pakistan’s information ministry on Sunday said the strikes involved “intelligence-based selective targeting of seven terrorist camps and hideouts” along the Afghan border belonging to the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State Khorasan Province….

Kabul has repeatedly denied allowing militants to use Afghan territory to launch attacks in Pakistan….

Tit-for-tat attacks — Pakistani planes striking the Taliban in Afghanistan, Afghani Taliban setting off bombs inside Pakistan — have been going on for months. Now they seem to becoming more frequent, and more deadly. Pakistan has just announced that in a cross-border strike it killed 80 people in an attack on Taliban outposts in Afghanistan. And the Taliban have announced that they will soon launch an “appropriate response.” Don’t be alarmed. Just pull up a chair, and root for both sides.