Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: The Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict intensifies with a strike on a Kabul hospital, some South Asian countries secure energy relief as traffic trickles through the Strait of Hormuz, and Nepal’s interim prime minister finds herself under fire as a new government prepares to take office.
Afghanistan-Pakistan Conflict Intensifies
Amid deepening conflict in the Middle East, the overlooked conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan is intensifying—and de-escalation looks very unlikely. On Tuesday, the Taliban regime accused Pakistan of bombing a hospital in Kabul, killing more than 400 people—the deadliest single incident in the conflict so far.
Islamabad denied the allegation, contending that its strikes targeted “military installations and terrorist support infrastructure.” Pakistan insists that Afghanistan is sheltering the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has staged increasing attacks on Pakistani territory since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
However, multiple media outlets and independent aid groups on the scene seemed to corroborate the Afghan account. The Norwegian Refugee Council said the site was a hospital that provides drug rehabilitation services and estimated that hundreds of civilians were killed and injured.
The strike came a few days after Islamabad accused the Taliban of launching drone attacks in civilian areas across Pakistan, crossing of a “red line,” according to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Pakistani forces responded with operations that hit an Afghan drone storage facility.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are suffering their worst violence in years, which is flying under the radar as war also rages nearby in Iran. Pakistan has carried out airstrikes across Afghanistan, with the Taliban retaliating with operations on Pakistani border posts and occasionally with kinetic actions deeper in Pakistani territory.
After a round of deadly violence in October, talks mediated by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey resulted in a cease-fire—but not a pledge by the Taliban to curb the TTP. The violence soon resumed, and the three states that mediated last year are hard pressed to reassert their role, as they are now bogged down in the Middle East conflict.
China is arguably best positioned to mediate between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has considerable leverage as a top Pakistani aid supplier and potential provider of capital. It also has skin in the game: The TTP has targeted Chinese investments and workers in Pakistan.
But Beijing, too, is limited by other challenges.
China announced on Monday that it has pursued mediation between the two sides for the past week, and that it “will continue to facilitate reconciliation.” But such efforts have failed, as the Kabul hospital strike tragically seems to illustrate. The failure can be attributed to Pakistan’s conclusion that diplomacy won’t convince the Taliban to stop sheltering their TTP allies.
With Pakistan upping the ante with more intensive strikes, the Taliban have reciprocated by using more sophisticated weaponry, such as drones, and expanding the geographic scope of their operations. The Taliban can’t compete with Pakistan’s military in a conventional conflict, but they can respond robustly through asymmetric means.
These means range from using the heavy weapons in their arsenal, many of which were seized from the Afghan security forces in 2021, to leveraging the loyalty of an array of militant groups and sponsoring attacks across Pakistan. The Iran war could also embolden militants along Pakistan’s southwestern border—which could complicate efforts to counter Taliban activities elsewhere.
Despite tough talk and escalating hostilities, neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan wants all-out conflict. Such a scenario would distract Pakistan from managing the growing risks that it faces from the Iran war, while the Taliban regime would face threats to its survival. But mistrust is sky high, and neither is in a mood to return to the negotiating table.
With no appetite for talks—whether bilateral or brokered externally—there are no off-ramps in site. For the first time in decades, South Asia could experience an all-out conflict not waged along the India-Pakistan border. But in the shadows of the Iran war, such a milestone could be ignored.
What We’re Following
Energy crisis relief? South Asia has been hit particularly hard by the energy security impacts of the Iran war. The region is heavily dependent on oil and gas imports from the Middle East, especially the Gulf countries, and has insufficient capacity to produce more at home to meet the demand of large and growing populations.
A few South Asian states—especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka—are recovering from serious economic crises, which heightens their vulnerability to shortages. Last week, Bangladesh and Pakistan ordered universities and government facilities to shut down or go remote. India, reeling from shortages of liquid petroleum gas used for household fuel, ordered supplies to be diverted away from industry.
However, in recent days, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan have all reached understandings with Iran to have some ship traffic pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is an especially significant achievement for India given its deepening partnership with Israel. It’s unclear how long this will last, but even modest access to the strait could help ease South Asia’s fuel shortages.
Nepal’s outgoing PM under fire. Interim Nepali Prime Minister Sushila Karki was slammed this week for her decision to appoint two allies to political posts as the new elected government prepares to take office this month. Karki appointed her home minister, Om Prakash Aryal, to a parliamentary seat and her personal secretary, Adarsha Kumar Shrestha, to head the National Trust for Nature Conservation.
The public has criticized Karki—who took the position in September after youth-led protests ousted the previous government—for rewarding cronies, condoning nepotism, and empowering officials without sufficient qualifications. Karki was previously applauded for pursuing anti-corruption reforms and preparing the country for elections on March 5, making the criticism somewhat surprising.
The main takeaway is that Nepal’s young population is impatient and eager to see that the principles that drove last year’s protests—new leadership, clean government, anti-corruption reform—are upheld. These high expectations put significant pressure on the incoming government.
Bangladesh targeted in U.S. trade investigation. The office of the U.S. Trade Representative recently announced an investigation of 60 economies on allegations of failing to curb the importation of goods produced with forced labor. It also announced a separate probe focused on more than a dozen economies tied to alleged unfair trade practices.
Bangladesh is being targeted in both investigations, and its inclusion is striking. Dhaka and Washington inked a trade deal that lowered tariffs and opened up more market access a few weeks ago, just ahead of elections in Bangladesh on Feb. 12. (The United States is a key destination for Bangladeshi exports.)
That Bangladesh is targeted in two separate U.S. probes is a reminder of the challenges that remain to the bilateral commercial relationship. U.S. concerns about labor rights have prevented the Development Finance Corporation from deploying capital in Bangladesh; this suggests that the new government in Dhaka could face considerable pressure from the Trump administration.
FP’s Most Read This Week
Under the Radar
On Tuesday, a parliamentary panel on foreign affairs presented a report to India’s lower house about the state of a port project in Chabahar, Iran. In 2016, New Delhi committed to investing in the development of the port in Iran’s south, viewing it as a potential strategic asset that could hasten Indian trade access to Central Asia via Iran and Afghanistan.
The Chabahar Port project has lapsed, however—largely because of U.S. sanctions on Iran. In September, the United States announced that it would revoke India’s sanctions waiver, which is expected to expire at the end of April.
India has publicly maintained faith in the project, but the parliamentary report takes a strikingly dim view, admitting that the war in Iran “has cast a shadow on the future” of the port. The report doesn’t call for giving up on the investment; it welcomes New Delhi’s efforts to remain “engaged with all concerned parties” on the issue.
Still, the unusually skeptical language underscores just how troubled the Chabahar Port project has become and how difficult it will be for New Delhi to salvage it.
Regional Voices
In the Kathmandu Post, political scientist Chandra Dev Bhatta argues that Nepal’s new government should not make any abrupt foreign-policy changes. After the Rastriya Swatantra Party’s landslide victory, “the fundamentals of foreign policy remain intact because they are built on the notion of defending national interests,” he writes.
In the Print, senior correspondent Triya Gulati faults Bollywood’s bad music taste for increasingly explicit song lyrics, citing a new hit called “Sarke Chunar Teri Sarke.” “So yes, Sarke Chunar Teri Sarke is vulgar,” she writes. “It’s very problematic. Yes, it’s a new low. But it’s also exactly where we were headed all along.”
In the Express Tribune, former government official Syed Akhtar Ali Shah decries the poor state of higher education in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “Higher education appears trapped in a recurring cycle of deficit, agitation, bailout and renewed crisis,” he writes. “The real question is whether we still understand what a university is meant to be.”
