The recent attack on Chinese nationals in Tajikistan is a stark reminder: disengaging from Afghanistan is a luxury the region cannot afford.
Salman Rafi Sheikh
The Tajikistan Attack
Late on the night of 26 November 2025, a cross-border assault struck a workers’ camp of LLC Shohin SM in the border area of Khatlon province, Tajikistan, at the frontier with Afghanistan. According to the foreign ministry of Tajikistan, the attackers struck from Afghan territory using both firearms and an unmanned aerial vehicle loaded with grenades. Three Chinese citizens employed by the company were killed, and a fourth was wounded. Tajikistan condemned the attack as an act of terrorism and called on the authorities in Afghanistan to restore security along the shared border. This incident — the first major attack of its kind in over a year — underlines how porous borders remain and how militants active in Afghanistan can now strike across frontiers with alarming impunity.
The attack is shocking but hardly surprising. Afghanistan, even after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 and their public pledge to deny any terrorist group a foothold for cross-border attacks, remains just fragile enough to allow militants to strike with impunity. The July 2025 UNSC report underscores this reality: ISIS-K* — the Taliban’s ideological nemesis and a group that has repeatedly targeted them in deadly attacks — continues to be the single most potent threat in the country. With over 2,000 fighters and a steady inflow of recruits from disaffected factions and splinter groups, ISIS-K* has not only survived but also consolidated pockets of influence in key provinces.
For regional powers, a coordinated security architecture offers far more than abstract strategic benefits: it safeguards critical investments, secures borders, protects populations, and reduces the temptation for unilateral military action
What is equally, if not more important, is that the report talks about the diminished ability of the political authorities in Kabul to effectively—and decisively—tackle such threats. The Taliban’s governance apparatus remains thinly stretched, unable to enforce security across vast and often remote provinces, leaving space for groups like ISIS-K* and other militant networks to operate with relative impunity. The problem is compounded by minimal regional and international engagement. While Russia is the only state to have formally recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government, and China has pledged targeted investments, Afghanistan remains largely isolated diplomatically, economically, and politically. The regime’s tenuous integration with its neighbours and the wider international system constrains its access to financial resources, intelligence sharing, and security cooperation that could be critical in suppressing transnational militant activity.
It is understandable why Afghanistan’s post-US-war integration has been slow. Regional states took their time to assess the advantages and disadvantages of engagement. The latest attack shows there may not be enough time left for such prolonged deliberations to continue. A change of tactics is urgently required.
Towards a regional security architecture
To confront this shared threat, regional states—including Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and others—must move beyond selective and unilateral engagement, as has been the pattern thus far, and forge a joint security architecture that fully integrates Afghanistan into a coordinated regional counterterrorism framework. Such an infrastructure could include military training programs, provision of weapons and equipment, and robust intelligence-sharing mechanisms to track and neutralise militant movements within Afghanistan and across borders. It could also establish joint rapid-response units along volatile frontier regions and standardise protocols for UAV monitoring, cross-border incident response, and crisis coordination. Beyond operational coordination, this architecture could strengthen Afghan security forces, enabling the current regime to assert control in previously neglected provinces and regions.
For regional powers, a coordinated security architecture offers far more than abstract strategic benefits: it safeguards critical investments, secures borders, protects populations, and reduces the temptation for unilateral military action. Pakistan’s recent cross-border strikes in Afghanistan, for instance, have failed to deliver the results Islamabad hoped for, highlighting the limits of episodic or unilateral interventions in a context where militant networks operate fluidly across borders. This failure underscores why piecemeal approaches cannot work and why a long-term, cooperative strategy is essential for a genuinely secure future.
The experience of Tajikistan provides another cautionary example and an important lesson in possibilities for engagement. Relations between Tajikistan and Afghanistan have long been fraught, particularly after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, when Dushanbe severed formal ties with Kabul. Yet there have been tentative signs of a thaw: border markets reopened in 2023, and a Tajik delegation visited Kabul earlier this month. In response, the Taliban have signalled full cooperation with Tajik authorities to counter cross-border threats. The implication is clear: security cannot be ensured in isolation. Bilateral efforts are necessary, but they must be complemented by a broader multilateral framework. The militant threat is not confined to one country or one regime; it is a regional challenge that demands a collective, coordinated response, with both the Taliban and neighbouring states embedded in a shared security ecosystem.
This overall security infrastructure must be underpinned by regional economic integration, which specifically allows landlocked Afghanistan to trade. This country is coming out of at least two decades of the US War on Terror. Unless it offers a chance for meaningful engagement, the regime in Kabul may not be able to deliver the kind of security that Afghanistan’s neighbours expect from it.
*- terrorist organization, banned in Russia
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
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