United Nations expressed “grave concern” about a new law issued by Afghanistan’s Taliban government on separation in marriage which includes provisions on child marriage. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former U.S. military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday (March 1, 2026), while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.

The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organisations, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.

Afghanistan-Pakistan war: Follow LIVE updates on March 1, 2026

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harbouring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.

Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.

On Sunday (March 1, 2026), the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m. The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defence systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.

There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.

Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a U.S. presence at the base.

The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday (February 26, 2026) night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday (February 22, 2026).

Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.

The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.

After Thursday’s (February 26, 2026) Afghan attack, Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”

In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.

Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday (March 1, 2026) of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday (February 27, 2026). The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorised to speak publicly.

In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless. ”Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday (March 1, 2026) in the border areas.

The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday (March 1, 2026) morning.

Defence Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.

Mr. Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday (February 28, 2026), killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.

There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.

Published – March 01, 2026 11:02 pm IST

Poliomyelitis was responsible for paralysing and killing up to half a million people every year before the development of the poliovirus vaccine in 1955. By 2000, through mass vaccination campaigns of oral polio vaccines, the world had almost eradicated poiliovirus barring a few regions.

However, the global fight against polio has encountered a significant setback, as cases of the disease have begun to rise again in Pakistan. Despite being on the brink of eradication in 2023, with only six reported cases of the wild form of the virus, the number of cases has surged to 73 in 2024. This alarming trend has prompted concerns among health experts, who point to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan as a major factor contributing to the spread of the disease.

Per data from the WHO, infectious diseases such as pneumonia, dengue fever and measles have also been on the rise in Afghanistan since the last six months.

Zulfiqar Bhutta, a renowned expert on child immunisation strategies in conflict zones, said that the genetic strains of wild poliovirus in Pakistan are all from Afghanistan, per a report on Deutsche Welle.

Bhutta, who has worked extensively in the region, attributes the resurgence of polio cases in Pakistan to the spillover of the virus from Afghanistan. “It has spread to all districts of Pakistan. We’ve snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” Bhutta lamented.

“It’s a virus that does not want to be eradicated, so give it an inch and it will take a yard,” Bhutta said.

The challenges facing polio eradication efforts in the region are multifaceted. Bhutta cites the Taliban’s restrictions on female health professionals, poor sanitary conditions, and regional insecurity as significant obstacles. The lack of reliable data on poliovirus cases in Afghanistan further complicates efforts to combat the disease.

Pakistan has invested heavily in poliovirus immunisation programs, with an estimated $10 billion spent since 2011. Despite these efforts, the country’s progress in eradicating the disease has been uneven, with varying immunisation rates across provinces. In Punjab, 85% of children are vaccinated, while in Balochistan the rate is as low as 30%. Until the coverage reaches 85-90% in all provinces, it is not possible to eradicate it, Bhutta said. He also emphasises the need for a comprehensive review of immunisation strategies, highlighting the importance of strengthening routine immunisation programs for all infectious diseases, not just polio.

Bhutta’s expertise in working with the Taliban in Afghanistan offers valuable insights into the complexities of delivering healthcare services in conflict zones. He stresses that the Taliban are not the enemy and that they share the same health concerns as everyone else. Bhutta’s experience in working with the Taliban to deliver smallpox vaccines during periods of negotiated peace underscores the potential for collaboration in addressing health needs.

The resurgence of polio cases in Pakistan serves as a stark reminder of the need for sustained efforts in combating infectious diseases. Bhutta’s call for a comprehensive review of immunisation strategies and his emphasis on addressing broader health needs in the region offer a way forward in the fight against polio. Ultimately, eradicating poliovirus in the region will require a concerted effort from international and local health authorities, as well as collaboration with the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
 

In yet another draconian move to curtail women’s freedom in Afghanistan, the Taliban said it will close all national and foreign non-governmental groups in the country employing women. 

In a letter published on X on Sunday night, Afghanistan’s Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in the country.

“The Ministry of Economy, as the authority for registering non-Emirati institutions, is responsible for coordinating, leading, and supervising all activities of domestic and foreign NGOs,” the post in Persian read.

“Therefore, once again, a follow-up circular has been issued to stop the work of female employees in non-Emirati and foreign institutions. In case of non-cooperation, all activities of the offending institution will be suspended and the activity license they received from this ministry will be cancelled,” it added.

وزارت اقتصاد منحیث مرجع ثبت و راجستر موسسات غیر امارتی، مسولیت انسجام، رهبری و نظارت تمامی فعالیت های انجو های داخلی و خارجی را به عهده دارد.
بناً یکبار دیگر طی متحدالمال تعقیبی در مورد توقف کار طبقه اناث در موسسات غیر امارتی داخلی و خارجی هدایت داده شده است. در صورت عدم همکاری… pic.twitter.com/kqiW7Re3an

— Ministry of Economy-Afghanistan (@economy_af) December 29, 2024

This comes two years after the Taliban told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan three years ago, Afghan women have been excluded from almost every sphere of public life, including schools, universities, most workplaces – and even parks and bathhouses. The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.

Earlier, the Taliban prohibited the construction of windows in residential buildings overlooking areas used by Afghan women. Announcing the move, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid explained in a statement on X, “Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts.”

Peshawar:

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed and seven others wounded in cross-border exchanges of fire with Afghanistan’s forces, a security source said Saturday, while hundreds of Afghans protested against the deadly air strikes that sparked the clashes.

Sporadic fighting, including with heavy weaponry, erupted overnight between border forces on the frontier between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and Khost province in Afghanistan, officials from both countries said.

The exchanges of fire come after Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mainly women and children, in air strikes near the border in the southeastern province of Paktika this week.

A Pakistan senior security source said they targeted “terrorist hideouts”, though Islamabad has not officially confirmed carrying out the bombardment.

“One frontier corps (FC) soldier has been reported dead, and seven others have been injured,” a senior security source at the border told AFP, adding clashes took place in at least two locations in Pakistan’s border district of Kurram.

The Afghan defence ministry said on X that “several points” across the border with Pakistan “where the attacks in Afghanistan were organised… were targeted in retaliation”.

A provincial official in Khost told AFP the clashes forced residents to flee border areas, but that there were no reports of casualties among Afghan forces.

In Khost city, the provincial capital, hundreds of Afghans demonstrated against Pakistan on Saturday, calling for accountability for civilian deaths.

Protester Najibullah Zaland said they demanded global economic pressure on Pakistan to prevent such incidents.

“We gathered here today to raise our voices to the world,” he told AFP.

“A path to peace must be put in place, or else the youth will not stay silent.”

The demonstrators praised the Afghan forces, with one protester, Rashidullah Hamdard, saying “our fighters gave them a strong response, and we stand with our forces”.

“We demand the world hold the Pakistani military accountable for these cruel and foolish attacks,” Hamdard said.

– ‘Red line’ –

The strikes were the latest spike in hostilities on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with border tensions between the two countries escalating since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s authorities of harbouring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity — allegations the Taliban government denies.

Skirmishes along the frontier escalated after Pakistan’s military conducted deadly air strikes in Afghanistan’s border regions in March, which Taliban authorities claimed killed eight civilians.

The UN assistance mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, called for an investigation into the “credible reports” of civilian deaths, as the UN children’s agency UNICEF said “children are not and must never be a target”.

“UNICEF is deeply saddened by reports that at least 20 children have been killed in an attack near the border in eastern Afghanistan,” regional director Sanjay Wijesekera posted on X.

The strike comes after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — who share a common ideology with their Afghan counterparts — last week claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which Pakistan said killed 16 soldiers.

“We desire good ties with them (Kabul) but TTP should be stopped from killing our innocent people,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet address on Friday.

“This is our red line,” he added.

Pakistan has been battling a resurgence of militant violence in its western border regions since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

In 2024 alone, the military has reported 383 soldiers and 925 militants killed in various clashes.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Moscow:

The Russian parliament has passed a law that would allow courts to suspend bans on groups designated as terrorist organisations by Moscow. The new law, passed by parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, paved the way for Moscow to normalise ties with the Afghan Taliban and potentially with the new leadership of Syria.

It outlines a legal mechanism for groups to be removed from the country’s official banned list of outlawed “terrorist” organisations by order of a court if they cease terrorist-related activity. The Taliban was in the first batch of groups to be added to the list, in February 2003, and Syria’s HTS was added in 2020.

So far, no country in the world recognises the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal after 20 years of war. However, the Kremlin has courted relations with the Islamist group, with President Vladimir Putin saying in July that the Taliban was now an ally in fighting terrorism.

There are also calls in Moscow for the removal of Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)–that spearheaded the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad this month– from Moscow’s list of banned terror groups.

The leader of Russia’s Muslim region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, on Monday said Russia needed ties to the new Syrian authorities to ensure stability and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Kadyrov is seen as a close Putin ally.

Russia’s Stake In Syria And Afghanistan

Moscow sees a major security threat from Islamist militant groups based in a string of countries from Afghanistan to the Middle East, where Russia lost a major ally with the fall of Assad.

The toppling of the Assad regime threatens the end of Russia’s presence in the Middle East and its coveted military foothold in the eastern Mediterranean region– the naval base of Tartus and, further north, the Hmeimim Air Base, both with 49-year-leases received after Russia helped to save Assad’s regime in 2015.

Moscow has used these bases to challenge American supremacy by projecting its military power in the eastern Mediterranean and claiming the role of a world power with vital regional interests. With the end of the friendly regime, Russia’s military foothold in the Mediterranean is threatened, but this does not mean that Moscow is about to withdraw from the region.

The Kremlin, this week, said that Moscow was in contact with the new leadership in Syria, where it hopes to retain the use of an airfield and a naval base.

Russia also has a complex and bloodstained history in Afghanistan. Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979 to prop up a Communist government but became bogged down in a long war against mujahideen fighters armed by the United States. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pulled his army out in 1989, by which time some 15,000 Soviet soldiers had been killed.

In March, gunmen killed 145 people at a concert hall outside Moscow in an attack claimed by Islamic State. US officials said they had intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch of the group, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), that was responsible.

However, now the Taliban says it is working to wipe out the presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan. But, Western diplomats say the movement’s path towards wider international recognition is stalled until it changes course on women’s rights.

The Taliban has closed high schools and universities to girls and women and placed restrictions on their movement without a male guardian. It says it respects women’s rights in line with its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

On December 17, 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit vendor, set himself on fire to protest against local officials having confiscated his stall. His act ignited the flames of a pan-Arab anti-establishment mass uprising that came to be called the ‘Arab Spring’. On the eve of the 14th anniversary of that incident and in the backdrop of last fortnight’s coup in Syria—the Arab Spring’s longest-running and bloodiest manifestation—an analysis of this rare phenomenon is called for. 

Tunisia To Egypt To Libya, The All-Encompassing Revolution

In the past 14 years, the Arab Spring has jolted several Arab countries, although its net impact remains contentious. Bouazizi’s self-immolation spurred mass demonstrations in Tunisia, toppling, within a month, the autocratic President in power for 23 years. Egypt followed shortly thereafter: the mass demonstrations centred on Cairo’s Tahrir Square forced President Mubarak to leave after 18 days despite having tried all sorts of deflections to stay in power. He was in power for 32 years and was replaced by the Supreme Military Council, which eventually gave way to the country’s first democratically held elections. The Muslim Brotherhood government lasted only a few months and was overthrown by the Army, which continues to wield power even now.

Col Muammar Qadhafi, President for 42 years of oil-rich Libya, also faced anti-government protests from mid-February 2011, which soon morphed into an armed insurrection based in the eastern coastal city of Benghazi. A UN Security Council Resolution authorising “all necessary measures” to protect civilians was weaponised by 27 Western and Middle Eastern powers to launch intensive airstrikes against the pro-Qadhafi forces. This tilted the balance against the government forces and eventually led to President Qadhafi being killed in combat on October 20. Even after massive bloodletting since, the civil war has continued and the country is still split, with a government each in Tripoli and Benghazi. Libya was the first case of foreign interests being strongly involved in influencing the outcome of the Arab Spring; it was not to be the last.

The protests in Bahrain that began in February 2011 were partly spurred by a Shia majority population chafing under a Sunni monarchy. These were initially aimed at achieving greater political freedom and respect for human rights, but the repression by authorities pushed them in that direction. The fellow monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council were alarmed by the perceived involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in disrupting the smallest Gulf state and intervened militarily to quell the protests. Saudi Arabia and the UAE sought to nip similar protests and reform movements in the bud with strongarm tactics.

Civil Wars In Syria And Yemen

Arab Spring protests in Syria and Yemen, two ethnically diverse and politically frozen republics under dynastic rules, unlocked long-suppressed popular sub-national aspirations. The confrontation did not remain peaceful for long, each morphing into a bitter civil war that brought in neighbouring and global powers resulting in counterproductive outcomes. In Syria, a country of 23 million, 13 years of civil war caused the deaths of nearly half a million people, displacement of nearly 15 million both internally and externally, and destruction put at half a trillion dollars. Yemen continued to be split into the al-Houthis-run north and the UN-recognised coalition in the south—both joined at the hip by disease and malnutrition.

Despite the complicated precedents, the second wave of Arab Spring unfurled 2018 onwards in Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq. While all of them had reforms as their leitmotif, the demands were more local and focused: in Algeria, “Herak” agitation was aimed at thwarting President Bouteflika, in power for 19 years, seeking a fresh term despite his physical incapacity. The Sudanese agitated against the 32 years of corrupt and violent rule of a military dictator. Iraqi and Lebanese youth wanted to bring down Muhasasa Taifiyeh, a system of sectarian power-sharing. While this wave of Arab Springers did partially achieve their immediate objectives, all of them are still mired in their respective crises.

Apart from these two waves, the Arab Spring touched almost all parts of the Arab World—from Western Sahara to Jordan and Kuwait.

A New Genre Of Dissent

It is important not to over-contextualise the Arab Spring. Even before 2011, the Arab world had similar protest movements, most prominent among these being the bread riots in Egypt and Algeria as well as the Palestinian Intefadah from the mid-1980s onwards. However, two decades later, the Arab Spring was a new dissent genre—being wild-fired by the spread of satellite television and social media leap-frogging over the state controls. Secondly, such protests also took place in other non-Arab but Islamic countries such as Iran (Hijab Protests), Pakistan (Imran Khan detention) and recently in Bangladesh (Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster), with mixed results. Even Israel, a regional exception, has had recurring mass protests against government attempts to curb judicial powers and to bring Israeli hostages home from Hamas captivity.

The foregone helps us to identify the root causes of the Arab Spring. Among them, the most widely felt reason could be a sense of ‘Hogra‘, a Maghrebi Arabic word roughly equivalent to the powerful’s contempt for a commoner; it could be expanded to envelope oppressive governance, personality cults and pretentious demagogy quite common in the Middle East. When coupled with stagnant, non-inclusive and non-representative polity, it manifests the Nasser-era paradigm of the ruled-adulating-the-benign-dictator that got increasingly out of place with the ethos of urbanised, better-educated and more aspirational modern Arab societies. The demographic reasons came next: the youth bulging to the working age found few worthwhile jobs within the country and faced shrinking opportunities for employment and migration abroad due to the global recession and low oil prices. These frustrations were aggravated by corruption and the skewed wealth distribution. Lastly, the average citizen was far younger than the long-ruling gerontocrats causing political disconnect and alienation. The boiling cauldron of public angst suddenly and conveniently cascaded into the Arab Spring. The top echelons’ recourse to police terror and/or palliatives was insufficient to contain the outpouring, and the shiny but brittle state cracked under pressure.

Why The Revolution Failed

It’s logical to ask why, despite initial success, the Arab Spring almost universally failed to reform the system. There are several reasons to be cited for this letdown.

Firstly, the Arab Spring movements were initially largely spontaneous without any leadership or agenda. Their initial aim was limited to a change at the top. Once that was achieved, they had little clue and unity on how to put in a better structure replacement as all of the Arab world governance models were flawed. Secondly, the long oppressive rule had meant that there was no credible “loyal opposition”—and the void was filled by either the Islamists (who often ran a mosque-based clandestine network) or the military.

Thirdly, foreign interventions often muddied the waters: they dithered between propping up the status quo or backing the democratic aspirations. The Western Powers, quite possessive about this eco-strategic region, also played their games, particularly in oil-rich countries.

Fourthly, the whirling anarchy often beckoned Islamic terrorism to hijack the agenda—as al-Qaeda and Islamic State did. Last, but not least, the national borders straddling ethnic and tribal groups also cross-pollinated the Arab Spring. The result was often a free-for-all, in which the most organised and committed side often won the day.

Whither The Arab World?

On the Arab Spring’s 14th anniversary, it is natural to ask if the Arab world is any better today and what its long-term impact is going to be. As of now, the most tangible takeaway from the Arab Spring is that a lasting socio-political transformation cannot be stillborn—it needs to evolve organically. One can also venture to suggest that the Arab Spring experience has no clear victors so far—at least the masses who are not only duped politically but also materially worse off. For instance, during the first decade of the Arab Spring to 2021, the nominal per capita income of an average Syrian declined by 86%, from $2971 to $421. So, although the al-Assad regime is finally gone 13 years after Arab Springers first demanded its ouster, the epic death and destruction make it a pyrrhic victory. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the succeeding Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led Salafi Sunni coalition would be an improvement.

All that one can safely say at this stage about the impact of the Arab Spring phenomenon is that it has shown a harsh mirror to the various stakeholders and made them aware of the limits of their respective powers. While one wishes that this awareness helps them to shift socio-political dynamics towards greater moderation and mutual accommodation, evidence on the ground suggests such hope may remain an ever-receding desert mirage.

(The author is a retired Indian Ambassador who learnt the Arabic language in Damascus. He currently heads Eco-Diplomacy and Strategies, a Delhi-based consultancy.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author