Pakistan Army Says Muslims Must Not Befriend Kaafirs Amid India-Afghanistan Outreach

A Religious Warning in a Geopolitical Dispute

Pakistan’s military has described India’s expanding engagement with Afghanistan as a direct challenge to Islamabad’s regional position, with a statement attributed to the Pakistan Army warning that Muslims should not forge friendships with “kaafirs,” an Arabic term for non-believers. The comments, circulated through Pakistan Army–associated social media channels and reported by regional outlets, immediately stirred condemnation and confusion. Many observers asked why one of the Muslim world’s largest armies would frame a strategic rivalry in explicitly sectarian terms, and the military’s media wing did not immediately offer a clarification. The message was clearly aimed at Kabul’s growing willingness to work with New Delhi, which Pakistan has long viewed as an aggressive power seeking to encircle it. India and Afghanistan do not share a border, but they share a history of partnership: India invested heavily in Afghanistan before the Taliban took power in August 2021, contributing billions of dollars to roads, dams, schools and public buildings. After the chaotic American withdrawal, New Delhi closed its embassy and evacuated its personnel, but it never fully abandoned the relationship. In the years since, India has maintained quiet contacts with Taliban officials and reopened a technical mission in Kabul; Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra has also met Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai. Pakistan watched those exchanges with alarm, convinced that Indian engagement in Afghanistan will eventually be used to destabilize Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Strategic Depth and Its Limits

For decades, Pakistan’s security establishment treated Afghanistan as the western anchor of its strategic depth—the idea that Pakistan must maintain influence over Afghanistan to ensure its own survival in any confrontation with India. This doctrine shaped Pakistan’s support for Afghan mujahideen fighters in the 1980s, its recognition of the Taliban regime in the 1990s, and its decades-long cultivation of Islamist networks in the region. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, many in Islamabad believed that Pakistan had finally achieved its goal: a friendly, Pashtun-dominated government in Kabul that would deny India any foothold. Reality has been far more complicated. Since taking power, the Taliban has refused to align itself wholly with Pakistan. Tensions have flared over the disputed Durand Line border, a Pakistani military campaign against militants in tribal districts, and the Taliban’s refusal to rein in the banned group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has carried out deadly attacks on Pakistani security forces. Pakistan also faces the burden of millions of Afghan refugees and repeated border closures. Instead of a docile neighbor, Islamabad has found itself facing an increasingly self-confident Kabul government that wants many friends, including China, Iran, Qatar and, crucially, India. Against this backdrop, the “kaafir” warning is less a religious edict than a threat born of frustration. It asks the Taliban leadership, an Islamic government that came to power through an uncompromising faith-based ideology, to choose a Muslim ally over a Hindu-majority state. The successful Afghan Taliban, however, has shown that its decisions are driven less by ideology than by survival. Kabul needs money, jobs, infrastructure and international recognition. India offers a path to all three. Pakistan, by contrast, offers a history of heavy-handed influence and a border that is far from settled.

India’s Quiet Return to Kabul

India has been careful in how it has re-engaged with Kabul. It has not formally recognized the Taliban government, which remains the demand of many Western countries and Afghan civil society groups. Yet New Delhi has never accepted the idea that Afghanistan should be left entirely to Pakistan’s orbit. Before 2021, India was one of Afghanistan’s largest regional donors, with assistance that included the construction of the Afghan Parliament, the Salma Dam, schools, health centers and road networks. Those investments left a lasting impression in large parts of Afghanistan, where Indian flags are often seen as symbols of friendship rather than rivalry. Since 2021, India has rebooted its presence in smaller steps. It handed over roughly 40 tonnes of medical aid and later sent multiple shipments of wheat through Iran’s Chabahar port, which was developed with Indian assistance as a way to reach Afghanistan without crossing Pakistani territory. In 2022, India sent a technical team to manage visa and humanitarian services at its embassy premises in Kabul. In 2023, the foreign secretary’s meeting with Muttaqi in Dubai was the highest-level engagement between the two governments since the Taliban takeover. More symbolic than substantive, the meeting nonetheless signaled that India’s commitment to Afghanistan would not be frozen indefinitely. Afghan officials, for their part, have welcomed India’s role. The Taliban has called India an “important regional country” and has repeatedly expressed interest in Indian development assistance, especially in health, agriculture and education. The acting Afghan foreign minister has stressed that Afghanistan wants to build balanced relations with all neighbors. That message of balance is a direct rebuke to Pakistan’s assumption that Kabul must follow Islamabad’s directives. For the Taliban, India is not a threat but an option—one that could reduce Afghan dependence on Pakistan and create leverage in its own negotiations with the United States and the broader international community.

Taliban Pragmatism Trumps Ideological Solidarity

Religious calls for Muslim unity have little force when governments are competing for limited resources. Afghanistan’s economy remains in severe crisis, with millions of people in need of humanitarian aid and unemployment rates among the highest in the world. The Taliban have put forward ambitious economic plans, including mining, energy and connectivity projects, but they lack capital and expertise. China has emerged as a major investor, particularly in oil and lithium extraction. Iran has maintained trade links through its eastern borders. Qatar has hosted Taliban diplomats and facilitated humanitarian flights. India, with its enormous market and engineering capacity, fits naturally into this mix. That is why the Pakistan Army’s “kaafir” language is so striking to regional experts. According to one retired Pakistani diplomat who spoke to the news website on condition of anonymity, “This is not religious policy; it is panic. Pakistan has spent decades trying to make Afghanistan a client state, and Kabul is slipping away.” Another analyst based in Kabul said the Taliban leadership, particularly its internal decision-making circles, is far from unified: some factions remain deeply suspicious of India because of its ties with former Afghan governments and its long-standing relations with Hindu and Sikh minorities in Afghanistan. But even hardline figures, the analyst said, recognize that they need international trade and aid. “Ideology is shrinking while the treasury is empty,” he added. The phrase “Muslims should not befriend kaafirs” also risks alienating Afghanistan’s non-Muslim minorities, including the small but ancient Hindu and Sikh communities. Both groups have faced attacks since the Taliban returned to power, and the Taliban has struggled to convince the world that it protects minority rights. A Pakistani military message that frames non-Muslims as enemies could further destabilize the environment for these communities and damage the Taliban’s efforts to gain international recognition. It may also embarrass Pakistan at a moment when Islamabad is seeking Western financial bailouts and diplomatic support.

Regional Reactions and the Diplomatic Fallout

Indian officials have mostly declined to engage with the controversial statement, treating it as an attempt to inflame communal tensions. A senior official in New Delhi, speaking to the website, said India’s foreign policy is based on respect for sovereignty and partnership, not religious identity. “We do not conduct diplomacy through sermons,” the official said. Afghan authorities have also avoided direct response; however, public commentary on Pakistani social media has been sharply critical. Pashtun users, in particular, expressed anger at the assumption that Afghanistan should choose friends based on Pakistan’s religious preferences. The controversy comes at a fragile moment for Pakistan’s international image. The country is dealing with a chronic economic crisis, political instability, violent militant attacks and difficult relations with the United States and other Western allies. By issuing a statement that seems to legitimize religious discrimination, Pakistan may be handing advantage to its rivals while undermining its own claims to lead the Muslim world in counterterrorism and regional stability. International human rights groups have long documented abuses in Pakistan’s treatment of religious minorities; the “kaafir” message will only reinforce those concerns. At the same time, Pakistan retains significant leverage. It controls overland supply routes into Afghanistan, hosts around three million Afghan refugees and has deep connections with many Taliban figures. It can still disrupt border trade, pressure Afghan officials through family networks and provide support to an array of militant proxies. Pakistan’s military establishment is not powerless. But the bluntness of its latest response suggests that it is uncomfortable with the idea of competing on merits with India. Rather than offering Afghanistan an attractive future, Islamabad appears to be leaning on shared religion—and in doing so, it has turned a policy question into a theological one that the Taliban may find impossible to enforce.

What Comes Next

The immediate consequence of the statement will likely be a further acceleration of India-Afghanistan diplomatic contacts. New Delhi has already indicated an interest in expanding medical scholarships, vocational training programs and development projects. India may also push for greater use of Chabahar port to deliver reconstruction material, which would effectively bypass Pakistan as a transit state. The Taliban, desperate for tangible benefits, is likely to welcome these gestures despite any religious objections. Pakistan, meanwhile, will face harder choices: it can either adjust to the new reality or double down on interference, which could plunge the region into another destructive proxy contest. Much will depend on the durability of Taliban rule. If the Afghan government cannot resolve its internal divisions and obtains no international recognition, it will remain weak and dependent, and Pakistan may yet reclaim some influence. But if India continues to provide high-profile aid and investment, and if Afghanistan’s leadership sees an opportunity to balance its neighborhood, Pakistan’s religious warning will quickly become a historical footnote. In the meanwhile, the region is watching to see whether Pakistan’s army will speak as a military institution or as a partisan religious voice. The more it chooses the latter, the more it isolates itself from a South Asia that is moving toward pragmatic economic ties and away from sectarian rivalry. The bottom line: a country that believes Muslims should not befriend non-believers is likely to find itself with very few friends. Pakistan’s army has spent years building alliances based on security and survival. Now, by introducing an unbridgeable religious line into that diplomacy, it has made its own position weaker. The Taliban may be a religious movement, but it is also a government trying to survive. In Kabul, survival will always outweigh a slogan.