The Durand Line: Fragile frontier

Conflict has flared once again between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed that Pakistan carried out air strikes inside its territory, killing 10 people near the Durand Line, in the intervening night of November 24 and 25. The strikes reportedly took place in Paktika, Khost and Kunar provinces. At the centre of the hostilities is the contentious Durand Line, the international border between the two nations delineated in 1893 by an agreement between the British and Abdur Rahman Khan, the then-emir of Afghanistan. It stretches from the border with Iran in the west to China’s border in the east, spanning…