Afghanistan’s Neighbors on High Alert Over Growing Cross-Border Threats

Following the collapse of the Islamic Republic government and the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, the regional security dynamics underwent a fundamental transformation. Although the Taliban, from the earliest days of their renewed rule, sought to alleviate concerns through slogans such as “ensuring nationwide security” and “posing no threat to other countries,” developments since 2021 suggest their rule has not restored stability and has significantly increased the security costs for neighboring and regional states. Today, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has become the central source of security anxiety in South and Central Asia.

The Taliban’s ascent to power has had multilayered repercussions across Afghanistan and its surrounding environment. Domestically, the disintegration of professional security institutions, the dismantling of border control structures, and Afghanistan’s conversion into a safe haven for extremist groups laid the groundwork for renewed insecurity. At the regional level, neighboring countries—despite establishing minimal political and economic ties with the Taliban—have repeatedly voiced profound concerns over the proliferation of extremism, cross-border terrorism, and narcotics trafficking. This duality—economic engagement on one hand and security trepidation on the other—underscores the Taliban’s inability to earn regional security trust.

This situation stands in stark contradiction to the Taliban’s commitments under the Doha Agreement, in which the group pledged that Afghan soil would not be used against the security of other countries and that no support would be extended to terrorist organizations. Nevertheless, numerous reports and analyses document the presence and operations of groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K) branch, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Jaish al-Adl, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, IMU Alliance, Imam Bukhari Battalion, Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group, Ansarullah Tajikistan (known as Taliban of Tajikistan), Balochistan Liberation Army (designated as a terrorist group by certain states), and other extremist networks with histories of terrorist activities, raising serious questions about those commitments. The direct consequence of this dynamic has been an escalation in military, security, and intelligence costs for neighboring countries, which have been compelled to bolster their border defenses through troop deployments, security outpost constructions, and comprehensive fortifications, while diverting vast financial resources to counter threats emanating from Afghanistan.

The Taliban regularly deny providing support to foreign militant groups and insist they have prevented threats from Afghan territory. Neighboring governments, however, say the networks listed above have remained active or have expanded since 2021.

In this analysis, I aim to examine the drivers behind the heightened security costs for regional states post-Taliban takeover, while underscoring how the Taliban have used relationships with allied militant groups as leverage across the region.

A: Pakistan

Pakistan was the first country to openly welcome the Taliban’s return, with senior officials, including General Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence(07 June 2019- 19 Nov 2021), visiting Kabul in the early days of the Taliban’s takeover. Contrary to expectations, however, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) activities surged unprecedentedly following the Taliban’s dominance in Afghanistan. Bloody attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan compelled Islamabad to inflate its military spending, intensify border operations, and even resort to intermittent airstrikes inside Afghan territory, including in Paktika and other eastern provinces. Pakistani officials argue the Afghan Taliban have not obstructed the TTP and have leveraged the group as a political pressure tool against Pakistan—a pressure that has engendered substantial security costs and domestic instability for Islamabad.

Multiple reports and analyses indicate that TTP members, operating with Taliban tolerance, according to Pakistani officials, have gained access to abundant armaments and repurposed Afghanistan as a critical base for logistics, command, and leadership. The Pakistani government has repeatedly lodged complaints on this front, urging the Taliban to curb anti-Pakistan groups operating from Afghan soil—a demand consistently denied and met with rejection by the Taliban.

To ameliorate its security posture, Pakistan’s government has shouldered enormous military and political costs to date. This has further strained the country’s fragile economy and politically obligated the government to court ethnic factions in tribal areas and religious seminaries for support.

Moreover, the launch of expansive military operations nationwide—particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan—has forced Pakistan to enhance its security and defense outposts with troop surges, barrier installations, acquisitions of bulletproof armored vehicles, anti-fragmentation protective vests, signal jammers for remote-detonated mines, and anti-drone systems; each measure imposing millions in costs on the Pakistani state. Concurrently, to execute economic projects in these zones, protective forces and security equipment have been augmented, constituting an extension of security expenditures into the economic domain.

B: Iran

The Iranian government, while maintaining cautious relations with the Taliban, has witnessed a severe intensification of its security concerns. The ISIS presence in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, rampant narcotics trafficking, border insecurity, and migration crises have necessitated substantial resource allocation toward securing Iran’s protracted border with Afghanistan. Scattered clashes  between Taliban forces and Iranian border guards underscore the fragility of the security landscape. Additionally, the Taliban’s deployment of extremist groups as indirect pressure instruments has placed Iran in a state of perpetual security alert.

Available statistics, drawn from credible reports, indicate that over the past four years, multiple Iranian border and security personnel—particularly in Sistan and Baluchistan Province—have been targeted by groups overtly based in Afghan territory and supported by the Taliban, both structurally and operationally. Terrorist entities like Jaish al-Adl, alongside organized crime syndicates involved in narcotics and migrant smuggling (with secure rear bases inside Afghanistan), engage Iranian security forces nearly every few days, inflicting heavy casualties and damages.

Post-Taliban takeover, Iran—for the first time in the history of bilateral neighborly relations—resolved to build a wall along its entire 921-kilometer eastern border with Afghanistan, at an enormous cost. Official Iranian reports estimate this border wall at a minimum of $3 billion. Iran first proposed a security wall in Sistan and Baluchistan in 2000, during the Taliban’s initial regime; the plan was shelved after their ouster and the new government’s formation. With the Taliban’s resurgence, the scheme expanded to the full eastern frontier, with accelerated implementation emphasized.

Since 2022, Iran has constructed new security outposts along its eastern border and multiplied border patrols. These measures stem entirely from enduring security anxieties vis-à-vis Taliban-controlled Afghanistan—apprehensions that, over four years, have profoundly altered the bilateral security dynamics, engendering persistent Iranian unease.

Beyond escalated security outlays, the Taliban’s rule imposes political costs on Iran. The group has comprehensively curtailed two cornerstone instruments of Iranian foreign policy (the Persian language and Shiite faith), leaving Tehran devoid of leverage for political maneuvering inside Afghanistan to foster or sustain ties. Afghanistan—long regarded as the Persian language’s cradle and home to luminaries like Rumi, Sanai, and Rabia Balkhi, serving as the paramount cultural and connective bridge between the two states—has devolved to the point where senior Taliban officials, during Iran visits, require translators to communicate with Iranian authorities.

Despite these concerns, Iran apparently perceives no viable alternative, preferring Taliban governance over a neighbor espousing rule of law, democracy, and civil liberties—fearing Western values’ promotion might incite Iranian regime change or Western penetration in its vicinity. Nonetheless, this optimism will assuredly evolve into a graver liability for Iran in the not-too-distant future.

C: China

China, the first to elevate political ties with the Taliban to ambassadorial level, has ostensibly expanded economic and political engagement but harbors acute security apprehensions. Beijing fears Afghanistan morphing into a base for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement—a direct peril to Xinjiang (East Turkestan), its predominantly Muslim northwestern province. Consequently, China has amplified security investments in Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan, and regional intelligence collaborations. These steps reveal the Taliban’s “no-threat-to-others” claim as unpersuasive to Beijing.

In recent People’s Liberation Army restructurings, China stationed a key corps near the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border in Xinjiang, while establishing a  joint military centre inside Tajikistan territory—merely 12 kilometers from Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor—to fortify border defenses.

China has not only fortified its Afghan border—the shortest land frontier with any state, circa 90 km in the Wakhan Corridor—but supported Tajikistan in constructing multiple new border security outposts.

Despite these exertions, at least five Chinese citizens were recently targeted and killed from Afghan soil in Tajik border areas, prompting China’s embassy to urge companies and personnel to leave the Tajik-Afghan frontier area—a setback disrupting joint China-Tajik mining and economic projects. Meanwhile, contradicting the Taliban nationwide security assertions, additional attacks on Chinese nationals have occurred inside Afghanistan.

Disruptions to vital road-building and mining initiatives in southern Tajikistan—China’s second-priority economic program after the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—have confronted serious security challenges traceable to Afghan-sourced threats, inflating project security costs. To safeguard CPEC personnel, China donated armored vehicles and bulletproof vests to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police—an added economic outlay. Yet, the project remains perilously exposed in numerous sectors, delaying completion by years.

D: Tajikistan

Tajikistan ranks among the region’s harshest Taliban critics. Dushanbe, alarmed by Tajik-affiliated extremists—especially Jamaat Ansarullah (Tajik Taliban)—in Afghanistan and insecurity spillover risks, has heavily militarized its borders, expanding security pacts with China, Russia, and select others. Surging military drills and heavy equipment deployments at the frontier epitomize the steep security toll imposed by the Taliban’s presence.

My examinations reveal that Tajikistan has erected at least 172 border security outposts and support bases along its Afghan frontier, many post-Taliban takeover. Given the predominantly mountainous, arduous terrain, accessing these sites and conducting patrols necessitated kilometers of new roads, incurring substantial ancillary border security expenses. (These counts are based on publicly available imagery and should be read as estimates.)

Over the past four years, Tajikistan has conducted numerous independent and joint military exercises with member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), as well as separate drills with Russia, Uzbekistan, and China and Uzbekistan, along its border with Afghanistan. These maneuvers have imposed substantial financial burdens on the Tajik government.

In the same period, multiple armed attacks and border clashes originating from Afghan territory have targeted Tajik forces. In recent weeks, at least two such incidents—involving drone strikes and direct fire from Afghanistan—have penetrated Tajik soil, causing casualties that included the deaths of five Chinese citizens. Tajik security forces have additionally reported repeated attempts at narcotics smuggling from Afghanistan, including the use of drones for cross-border trafficking.

In response to these escalating security incidents, Tajikistan has requested military support and assistance from its allies, particularly CSTO member states, to bolster the protection of its Afghan border.

E: Uzbekistan and Other Central Asian States

Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have adopted a dual posture toward the Taliban: economic engagement and trade interest alongside security fortifications. Fears of extremist infiltration, narcotics smuggling, and regional instability have prompted budget hikes for security and expansions in counterterrorism collaborations.

Uzbekistan maintains at least 70 Afghan border outposts and support bases, many created or reinforced in the last four years amid threats, at immense cost.

Post-Taliban, several  Afghan-origin attacks—primarily ISIS—targeted Uzbekistan; security forces have frequently reported intercepting Afghan-sourced drug consignments.

My reviews of Uzbekistan’s security incidents over three years document multiple identifications and arrest of radicals affiliated with ISIS-K, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Imam Bukhari Battalion/Katibat, and Tawhid wal Jihad Battalion. In one of the most notable cases, Uzbek authorities reported uncovering a large group led by a 19-year-old woman who had pledged allegiance to ISIS–Khorasan and was allegedly planning acts of sabotage.

During the same period, the Uzbek government also announced the discovery of several clandestine religious schools that were providing radical instruction to children and adolescents, accusing those involved of attempting to spread religious extremism

Per available data and a conversation with a vendor at the Afghan-Uzbek Termez joint market, Uzbek security—despite official market support—treats all Afghans suspiciously, surveilling market visitors from entry to exit. “They search our shops anytime, scanning Afghan-imported goods repeatedly,” he noted.

After terrorist attacks in Tajikistan, Central Asian security anxieties spiked. Kyrgyzstan, despite distance from Afghanistan, is erecting costly fenced walls along its southern Uzbekistan-Tajikistan borders. Few  days ago, State Security Chief Major General Kamchybek Tashiev—also deputy PM—inspected fencing  progress, ordering acceleration for full southern border closure by 2026, driven by regional threats at heavy cost to this small state.

Kyrgyzstan deems rising religious extremism a grave threat, prosecuting multiple arrests for terrorist affiliations and extremism over recent years. Like Uzbekistan, it periodically reports busts of hidden radical madrassas.

Nonetheless, Kyrgyzstan is attempting to establish economic relations with the Taliban to facilitate security information exchange and implement preventive security measures.

Turkmenistan, another Afghan Central Asian neighbor, outwardly—owing to its opaque information ecosystem—displays minimal alarm regarding developments in Afghanistan. Satellite imagery, however, discloses new frontier security facilities; in regional forums, it has voiced Afghan instability as a collective security menace.

In sum, the Taliban regime—contrary to Doha pledges—has neither secured the country nor regional stability but catalyzed escalated security costs. Through incapacity or unwillingness to rein in terrorists, the Taliban have geopolitically weaponized Afghanistan for political and economic extortion from its neighbors. Absent change, their regional security assurances remain hollow rhetoric, with neighbors footing the bill. Global precedents, including Pakistan’s border fencing, demonstrate such measures’ ineffectiveness against extremism infiltration. Physical barriers may somewhat limit the entry of individuals; however, Pakistan’s experience even attests failure here, with media reports of armed terrorists breaching Afghan-Pakistan walls, fences, and barbed wire recurrently.