Islamabad, Pakistan – Less than two hours after a suicide blast at the entrance of the district court in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Tuesday, Khawaja Asif, the country’s defence minister, called the attack a “wake-up call” and “a war for all of Pakistan”.

“The rulers of Kabul can stop terrorism in Pakistan, but bringing this war all the way to Islamabad is a message from Kabul, to which, praise be to God, Pakistan has the full strength to respond,” he wrote on his X account.

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After a week of deadly fighting on their border in October, Pakistan and Afghanistan had signed a ceasefire agreement in Doha, with Asif and his Afghan counterpart Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob inking the pact.

But that was followed by two unsuccessful rounds of talks in Istanbul aimed at cementing the ceasefire and turning it into a longer-term pathway for peace between the neighbours.

Now, even as a Turkish delegation is due to arrive in Pakistan later this week to try to salvage those talks between Islamabad and Kabul, Tuesday’s attack threatens to kill the already fragile prospects of any breakthrough, even though the Taliban have condemned the Islamabad blast.

“I should make this clear about Afghanistan,” Asif said, speaking to a local news channel on Tuesday. “All their wars have been based on insurgency. To counter that, we must rely on conventional war, and Pakistan has a great army.”

Historical ties and recent ruptures

Pakistan long enjoyed close ties with the Afghan Taliban, and many Pakistanis welcomed the group’s return to power in August 2021.

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But relations have soured, largely over Islamabad’s accusations that Kabul has provided sanctuary to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The Afghan Taliban reject Pakistan’s accusations.

An armed group that emerged in 2007, the TTP has waged a sustained campaign against Pakistan and is often described as the ideological twin of the Afghan Taliban.

Besides the TTP, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of sheltering the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the local ISIL/ISIS affiliate, known as the ISKP – even though the ISKP is a sworn enemy of the Afghan Taliban.

The last two years have seen a sharp rise in violence inside Pakistan. Most attacks have occurred in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, both of which border Afghanistan.

The assaults have disproportionately targeted law enforcement personnel. More than 2,500 people were killed in armed attacks in Pakistan in 2024, one of the country’s deadliest years in nearly a decade, and 2025 appears on track to exceed that toll.

Aside from the suicide blast in Islamabad, a major operation in Wana, the administrative centre of the tribal district South Waziristan, helped avert a potentially catastrophic attack earlier this week. A two-day military operation rescued more than 500 students, teachers and staff, concluding on Tuesday night.

‘Full-scale war unlikely’

Despite the heightened rhetoric and violence, analysts say the chances of a full-scale conventional war between Pakistan and Afghanistan remain “very slim”.

“Opting for a conventional war against Afghanistan would damage the positive image Pakistan has cultivated over the past few months,” Fahad Nabeel, head of Islamabad-based Geopolitical Insights, told Al Jazeera, referring to Islamabad’s growing friendship with the administration of US President Donald Trump, and Pakistan’s narrative that it is a victim of violence from its neighbours – India and Afghanistan – rather than a trigger-happy initiator of conflicts.

Iftikhar Firdous, a security analyst who also co-founded the Khorasan Diary – a security portal that tracks regional security developments – also agreed.

The arrival of a Turkish delegation, scheduled for later this week, Firdous said, suggests that Afghanistan and Pakistan might be willing to de-escalate.

He pointed to the Taliban’s condemnation of the Islamabad attack as evidence of “their intention that they don’t want this [peace talks] to collapse entirely”.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Abul Qahar Balkhi, the spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Afghanistan, said that Kabul “expresses its deep sorrow and condemnation” regarding the explosion in Islamabad and the attack in Wana.

Delhi blast and regional realignments

But the suicide attack in Islamabad wasn’t the only deadly explosion in South Asia this week. A car blast in New Delhi on Monday killed at least 13 people.

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Indian investigators have not publicly blamed any entity or state, and say inquiries are ongoing, but have invoked the country’s “anti-terror” law and made a series of arrests.

This is the second major attack on Indian soil this year, following a deadly incident in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, in April that led to a four-day military standoff with Pakistan.

The Pahalgam assault, which left more than two dozen civilians dead, was blamed by Indian authorities on an allegedly Pakistan-backed group.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has since warned that any further attacks on Indian soil would be treated as attacks by Pakistan.

While Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan has deteriorated this year, India, which historically treated the Taliban as a Pakistani proxy and avoided formal contact, has strengthened diplomatic and strategic ties with Kabul, particularly in 2025.

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi made his maiden visit to New Delhi in October, which coincided with an outbreak of cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has accused India of supporting armed groups targeting Pakistan and sheltering them in Afghanistan.

After the Islamabad court blast on Tuesday, Sharif blamed India for both the Islamabad and Wana incidents without presenting evidence.

“Both attacks are the worst examples of Indian state terrorism in the region. It is time for the world to condemn such nefarious conspiracies of India,” he said.

India “unequivocally” rejected the allegations, calling them “baseless and unfounded” and accusing Pakistan’s leadership of delirium.

Is a wider war looming?

Firdous, who divides his time between Islamabad and Peshawar, said Pakistan has consistently framed the TTP and other groups as proxies influenced by India seeking to destabilise its western neighbour.

“I would not say that Pakistan blamed India directly as such, but they just reiterated its narrative. They have been trying to tell the world that it is Pakistan, not India, which is the victim of terrorism, and that the Afghan Taliban are now becoming Indian proxies,” he said.

With tensions simmering in both Islamabad and Kabul and aggressive rhetoric being deployed by senior officials, the question persists: Is an all-out war looming?

Firdous does not believe a conventional war is imminent, but warns of a realignment in which Afghanistan, once again, becomes “central to global power games”.

Diplomacy still has a role, Firdous stressed, saying that mediators such as Turkiye and Qatar are urging restraint.

Nabeel said that periodic aerial strikes inside Afghanistan remain a plausible military option for Islamabad.

“However, Pakistan will continue to give diplomacy a chance to demonstrate that it has exhausted all possible options,” he said, before it resorts to military strikes.