Pakistani-Afghan conflict fears grow as border clashes multiply

Hopes for resolution fade as Islamabad claims Taliban harboring Pakistani militants.

 ISLAMABAD -- In August 2021, Pakistan celebrated the takeover of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban. "Afghanistan has broken the shackles of slavery," said a jubilant Imran Khan, then prime minister of Pakistan.

Things change fast in a part of the world that has long been a hotbed of political and military strife. Little more than three years on from the Taliban seizing power, Khan is in jail, charged with corruption, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are launching attacks on one another in an increasingly deadly escalation of what analysts say could be a long-term conflict as Islamabad strives to ensure it does not follow Afghanistan's path.