RASC News Agency: Once the cradle of ancient civilizations and a proud independent republic, Afghanistan has now been tragically reduced to a mere pawn in Pakistan’s geopolitical chessboard. After years of war and fragile reconstruction, the country today lies under the iron grip of the Taliban a group whose claim to national governance is overshadowed by its blatant servility to Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment. Despite their rhetoric of sovereignty, the Taliban have shown neither the will nor the capacity to function as an independent political entity. Rather, they operate as a foreign-dependent regime, executing Islamabad’s regional ambitions under the direct patronage of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Far from being the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban have emerged as a puppet militia, enabling Pakistan to exert strategic control over Afghanistan’s territory, politics, and people.
According to declassified intelligence documents, leaked diplomatic cables, and the investigative reports of global human rights organizations, Pakistan has re-engineered the Taliban as a proxy force, pouring financial resources, military training, and strategic coordination into its ranks. The group, once on the verge of collapse after 2001, has been resurrected by Pakistan’s covert operations resurrected not to serve Afghanistan, but to dominate it from the outside. The central Taliban command, including key decision-making bodies, is not headquartered in Kabul but in Pakistani safe havens, where its leaders live comfortably while orchestrating a reign of terror across Afghanistan. These so-called leaders many of whom have spent decades in Pakistan own luxurious residences, run profitable businesses, and enroll their children in private schools in Islamabad and Karachi. Meanwhile, they export radicalism and repression back into Afghanistan’s cities, towns, and villages.
Afghanistan’s sovereignty has been reduced to illusion. With Taliban governance guided by external command, the country no longer enjoys the autonomy of a nation-state but functions more like a subjugated province within Pakistan’s strategic orbit. Taliban rule is not characterized by national stewardship but by loyalty to Islamabad’s geopolitical blueprint. From Panjshir to Kandahar, Pakistan’s fingerprints are visible across every major Taliban campaign. In the early days of the resistance in Panjshir, it was none other than the head of Pakistan’s ISI who flew to Kabul to direct operations against anti-Taliban forces. ISI agents remain embedded in Taliban intelligence and security units, orchestrating domestic repression under the guise of counterinsurgency.
Reports have surfaced confirming that several Taliban-appointed provincial governors are in fact Pakistani nationals or ISI assets, handpicked to enforce Islamabad’s interests under the cover of local administration. These officials neither represent Afghanistan’s constituencies nor serve Afghanistan’s interests. They represent the machinery of foreign control. Such deep penetration of foreign personnel into the core of Taliban governance strips away any remaining façade of independence. Afghanistan, in practice, is no longer a sovereign state it is Pakistan’s undeclared fifth province, run by clerics and commanders whose allegiance lies not with the Afghanistani people but with the security apparatus across the Durand Line.
The consequences of this foreign-subservient regime have been catastrophic for the Afghanistani population. Under Taliban rule, basic human rights have been obliterated. Women have been erased from public life, barred from education, employment, and political participation. Journalists face imprisonment or exile. Civil society has been silenced. Ethnic and religious minorities live in daily fear. These are not the byproducts of Afghanistan’s culture or tradition they are the enforcement of Pakistani-designed authoritarianism, implemented through Taliban brutality. International human rights bodies have repeatedly confirmed that Taliban governance is shaped by Pakistan’s desire for a weak, dependent, and malleable Afghanistan one that cannot challenge its hegemony in the region.
Every day the Taliban remain in power, the Afghanistani people are pushed deeper into poverty, disenfranchisement, and despair. The regime’s economic mismanagement, combined with draconian social policies, has created a humanitarian disaster where over half the population depends on foreign aid for survival while Taliban leaders enrich themselves and their Pakistani patrons. The Taliban’s subordination to Pakistan is not just a national tragedy it is a threat to regional stability and international security. With safe havens in Pakistan, Afghanistan under Taliban rule could once again become a breeding ground for transnational terrorism. Already, militant groups aligned with al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are regrouping, aided by the permissiveness of Taliban authorities.
Unless the international community acts decisively to dismantle this proxy apparatus, Afghanistan’s transformation into a security black hole will be complete. Silence and appeasement will only embolden Islamabad and its Taliban proxies to deepen their hold on a nation already brought to its knees. Afghanistan is not a sovereign Islamic Emirate it is a colonized state under militant occupation, operated in the service of a foreign power. The Taliban’s loyalty lies not with the Afghanistani people but with the architects of their rise Pakistani generals and intelligence chiefs who use religion and repression as tools of control. If the world is sincere in its commitment to peace, sovereignty, and human dignity, then it must confront the root of the problem: the Pakistani state’s strategic manipulation of Afghanistan through its Taliban proxy. The Afghanistani people must be given the chance to reclaim their homeland not as a playground for regional ambition, but as a free, pluralistic, and self-governing nation.
