Weaponized faith to burning borders in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is no longer simply a humanitarian tragedy. It is becoming a strategic fault line — where religious repression at home and militant projection abroad converge in ways that threaten South Asia and, eventually, regions far beyond.

Two recent developments crystallize this reality. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended designating Afghanistan a “Country of Particular Concern,” citing systematic and egregious violations of religious liberty under Taliban rule.

At the same time, cross-border militant attacks emanating from Afghan territory have intensified, from infiltration attempts into Pakistan to deadly drone and armed assaults along the Afghanistan–Tajikistan frontier that have killed foreign nationals and exposed vulnerabilities in regional infrastructure. These are not separate crises; they are the twin faces of a single governing philosophy.

Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban have constructed a state that fuses political control with an absolutist interpretation of religion. Public punishments — floggings, executions and humiliations — are staged as moral theater.

Women are erased from public life, barred from education beyond early adolescence and excluded from most employment. Religious minorities face intimidation, marginalization and restrictions on worship. Even Muslims who diverge from the Taliban’s preferred doctrinal interpretation risk exclusion and reprisal.

The regime presents these policies as fidelity to faith. But what has emerged is not spiritual revival; it is a theological monopoly. By narrowing the definition of religious legitimacy and criminalizing dissent, the Taliban have transformed belief into an enforcement mechanism. Religion becomes not a source of moral guidance but a tool of surveillance and submission.

This internal repression is not only a human rights catastrophe; it is also a security catalyst.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of numerous regional and international militant organizations operating within Afghanistan. Thousands of foreign fighters remain active. Networks affiliated with groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Islamic State Khorasan Province exploit permissive spaces and porous borders. The result is an expanding arc of instability stretching from Pakistan’s frontier districts to Central Asia.

The evidence is no longer abstract. Cross-border attacks along the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border have prompted the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization to bolster Tajik defenses.

Drone assaults and armed infiltrations have targeted infrastructure and foreign workers, underscoring vulnerabilities in economic corridors meant to knit the region together. Pakistan continues to confront militant incursions traced to Afghan sanctuaries. Iran faces smuggling and sectarian tensions along its eastern flank.

A state that suppresses pluralism at home while tolerating or failing to dismantle militant ecosystems within its borders does not contain instability — it exports it.

South Asia sits at the epicenter of this dynamic. The region already carries unresolved disputes, fragile political balances and uneven economic development. Renewed cross-border militancy diverts resources from growth to security, inflames sectarian tensions and undermines connectivity projects designed to foster interdependence.

Energy corridors and trade routes linking Central and South Asia cannot flourish under the shadow of insurgent infiltration.

China has already seen its nationals killed in cross-border violence. Russia is recalibrating its regional security posture. Pakistan is fortifying its frontier. These responses reflect a shared recognition: Afghanistan’s trajectory is no longer a domestic matter.

Nor will geography indefinitely shield Western capitals. Militant networks incubated in permissive environments have historically demonstrated patience and reach. Afghanistan’s earlier role as a transnational extremist hub reshaped global security policy for decades. Assuming that today’s ecosystem will remain regionally confined is a gamble history advises against.

Yet the international response remains fragmented. Humanitarian engagement is essential; millions of Afghans face poverty and deprivation. But humanitarian necessity must not slide into political normalization absent accountability. Designating Afghanistan a Country of Particular Concern is not a symbolic gesture. It is an acknowledgment that systemic repression has become state policy.

Engagement with Kabul must be conditional and measurable: dismantling terrorist infrastructure, guaranteeing basic religious freedoms and restoring women’s access to education and employment.

Regional governments must deepen intelligence cooperation, harmonize border controls and coordinate financial tracking of illicit flows that sustain militant networks. Isolated approaches will fail against transnational threats.

Afghanistan today embodies a stark lesson: When a government weaponizes faith to consolidate power, it often generates insecurity that cannot be contained by borders. The erosion of religious freedom inside the country is not merely a moral failure; it is part of a broader architecture of instability.

The world once learned — at devastating cost — that neglecting Afghanistan’s internal transformation can produce global consequences. It would be reckless to relearn that lesson.

Afghanistan’s crisis is no longer only about the rights of its people, though those rights are urgent and sacred. It is about whether the international community recognizes that repression and radicalization, left unchecked, rarely remain local phenomena.

When faith is turned into an instrument of fear and militant networks find room to breathe, borders eventually burn.

Advocate Mazhar Siddique Khan is a Lahore-based High Court lawyer.