In a new interview, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Afghanistan has suffered enough from war and will not take sides in any India-Pakistan fight. The message lands as Kabul’s ties with New Delhi quietly improve and its relationship with Islamabad remains locked in accusation, airstrikes, and competing casualty claims.
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| Source: Video Screenshot |
Key Takeaways by Planet Today
Official line from Kabul: Mujahid told RT India’s podcast that war and regional destabilization benefit no one, that Afghanistan is not seeking conflict, and that it would not put “boots on the ground” for India against Pakistan.
Two overlapping disputes: The interview sits on top of a real Afghanistan-Pakistan border crisis, not only the older India-Pakistan rivalry. Islamabad accuses Kabul of hosting militants; Kabul says Pakistani strikes hit civilians and that it did not start the latest fighting.
India’s quiet opening: The Taliban government has improved practical ties with India while still lacking broad Western recognition. Pakistan treats that opening as part of its own security problem.
Economic pitch attached to the peace talk: A separate Taliban economy official said Kabul would protect a prospective Russia-to-India rail route across Afghanistan if it materializes, framing reconstruction and trade as the alternative to more war.
Source caution: The core quotes come from an RT India interview. That outlet is Russian state-funded. The surrounding conflict, however, is independently documented by UN reporting, Pakistani and Afghan official statements, and regional newsrooms.
What Mujahid Said
Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid spoke with Runjhun Sharma on the RT India program India, Russia, and the World. The conversation was published in late August 2026, five years after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul. Under Taliban rules, the host and spokesman were not filmed in the same frame.
Asked whether Afghanistan would fight for India against Pakistan, Mujahid refused the premise. “War benefits no one, and neither does destabilizing the region,” he said. He added that Afghanistan does not want war or instability and does not want any country to take action against another.
“We do not want war or instability in the region, and we do not want any country to take action against another.”
On the recent border fighting with Pakistan, he said Afghanistan did not start it and was defending itself after what he called a violation of Afghan territory. “Defending ourselves is our right, but we are neither the initiators nor do we want it to continue.”
He also pointed to the shared culture, trade, and geography of people on both sides of the Durand Line. In the same interview he said ties with India were moving in a positive direction and that Afghanistan, in a reconstruction phase, wanted Russia’s experience, fuel, energy, and trade cooperation. A separate interview with Abdul Rahman Habib of the Taliban Ministry of Economy, also conducted by Sharma, said Kabul would try to guarantee the safety of a prospective rail corridor linking Russia to India and giving Moscow a path toward the Indian Ocean.
The primary write-up of those remarks is RT’s article on the Mujahid interview. The companion video episode is listed on RT’s show page as published 27 August 2026.
Why This Interview Matters Now
The remarks would be less notable if they were only diplomatic filler. They are not. Since late 2025 and through 2026, Afghanistan and Pakistan have moved from familiar border friction into a more direct state-to-state confrontation. Pakistan has carried out airstrikes and ground operations inside Afghanistan, saying it is hitting Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other militant infrastructure. The Taliban government has answered with its own cross-border fire and has accused Pakistan of killing civilians, including women and children.
Independent coverage has recorded that cycle in detail. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has reported civilian deaths from Pakistani cross-border operations. Pakistan’s military has rejected those figures and said it targeted militant hideouts in self-defense. Both governments have used the language of sovereignty. Neither has produced a settlement that lasted.
At the same time, India has moved from post-2021 caution toward structured, still unofficial engagement with the Taliban authorities: an upgraded diplomatic presence in Kabul, humanitarian and medical deliveries, and public assurances from Kabul that Afghan soil will not be used against India. Pakistan has repeatedly claimed the opposite — that Indian activity in Afghanistan is linked to militancy inside Pakistan. India rejects that charge as insecurity over New Delhi’s restored access to Kabul.
Mujahid’s interview tries to hold those two tracks together: no military alignment with India against Pakistan, no admission that Afghanistan started the latest border fighting, and a public invitation to trade with both India and Russia.
What Mainstream Coverage Emphasizes
Western and large regional outlets have spent 2026 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan war more than on Kabul’s messaging to an Indian audience. The New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and UN reporting have focused on airstrikes, civilian tolls, failed ceasefires, and the TTP question. In that reporting, Pakistan’s core claim is consistent: attacks inside Pakistan rose after 2021, and the Taliban have not dismantled sanctuaries. Afghanistan’s core claim is also consistent: Pakistani aircraft and artillery have hit homes, and Kabul is not responsible for Pakistan’s own insurgency.
Indian mainstream coverage has treated the Taliban’s outreach as a pragmatic, limited opening rather than a strategic alliance. New Delhi has not formally recognized the Islamic Emirate. It has, however, restored embassy-level presence and increased development and medical assistance. That is the context in which Mujahid’s line about “a strong relationship with India” should be read: political contact without full diplomatic normalization.
Pakistani official media and the Foreign Office have kept a harder line. As recently as 27–28 August 2026, Islamabad said it remained open to state-level talks but only if Kabul gave “tangible and verifiable” written guarantees that Afghan territory would not be used by the TTP or the Baloch Liberation Army. A Pakistani information-ministry fact-check on 25 August rejected a separate Mujahid claim that Pakistani forces were involved in violence in Badakhshan, calling that allegation fabricated and blaming Afghanistan’s own governance failures.
Those two Pakistani statements — openness to talks plus a public rejection of Taliban accusations — are the latest official counterpoint to the RT interview. See Pakistan’s 28 August position as reported by The Express Tribune.
What Alternative and State-Aligned Outlets Emphasize
RT’s framing is not hidden. The show is built around an India-Russia lens. The interview presents the Taliban as a government seeking reconstruction, energy ties with Russia, and a peaceful regional role after “suffering greatly” from war. That is a legitimate set of quotes. It is also a selective set of quotes. The same movement still enforces a ban on girls’ secondary and higher education, still faces isolation from much of the West, and still has not resolved the TTP dispute that sits at the center of Pakistan’s case.
Pakistani state and pro-government outlets treat Taliban interviews with Indian or Russian platforms as part of a propaganda contest. They argue Kabul is trying to internationalize a terrorism problem it will not police. Afghan official and Taliban-aligned channels treat Pakistani strikes as proof that Islamabad, not Kabul, is the aggressor, and they use civilian-casualty claims to invert the terrorism narrative.
Indian nationalist commentary often reads any Taliban warmth toward New Delhi as a strategic gain against Pakistan. Pakistani nationalist commentary reads the same warmth as encirclement. Both readings go beyond what Mujahid actually said. He refused a hypothetical Indian war role. He did not accept Pakistan’s TTP indictment. He did not offer a ceasefire mechanism. He offered a general peace formula and a reconstruction pitch.
The Facts That Are Not in Dispute
Several points can be stated without picking a capital.
First, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been in an active cross-border confrontation through 2026, with airstrikes, artillery, drones, and competing death tolls. That is not a talking point. It is a documented military pattern.
Second, India has expanded practical contact with the Taliban government while withholding formal recognition. Pakistan says that contact has a security cost. India says Pakistan is projecting its own failures onto New Delhi.
Third, people on both sides of the border do share language, kinship, markets, and a colonial-era frontier that Afghanistan has never formally accepted as a settled international boundary. Mujahid’s cultural argument is therefore not invented, even if it does not resolve who polices which fighters.
Fourth, a Russia-India rail concept via Afghanistan is still prospective. Announcing a willingness to protect such a route is a political signal, not a built corridor. Sanctions, security, financing, and recognition all stand in the way.
Where the Accounts Diverge
The split is over cause and agency.
Pakistan’s account: the TTP and allied groups operate from Afghan territory, the Taliban will not or cannot stop them, and force is therefore self-defense. Some Pakistani officials also allege an Indian hand in violence originating from Afghan soil. They have not placed publicly verifiable evidence of that Indian role in the open record in a form that independent outlets have confirmed.
Afghanistan’s account: Pakistan’s strikes violate sovereignty, kill civilians, and are meant to pressure a government that is no longer Islamabad’s client. The TTP, in this telling, is Pakistan’s problem. Kabul says it does not allow its soil to be used against any country, including India and Pakistan.
India’s account: engagement with Kabul is humanitarian and diplomatic, Afghan assurances against anti-India militancy are welcome, and Pakistani accusations are a habit of blame-shifting.
A reader can hold all three accounts at once without having to baptize any of them as the full truth. The missing piece in every version is the same: a verified, enforceable arrangement on militant sanctuaries, border management, and civilian protection. Interviews do not supply that arrangement. Lists of casualties do not either.
Reconstruction Rhetoric Versus the Record on the Ground
Mujahid’s reconstruction language is the most politically useful part of the interview for Kabul. It recasts the Taliban from isolated militia to a government that wants Russian engineers and Indian trade. Deputy Information Minister Muhajir Farahi, speaking in the same RT episode, said Western sanctions hurt ordinary Afghans and that no one should interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs or its Islamic legal order.
That internal order remains the reason much of the world still withholds recognition. Girls above grade six remain barred from formal schooling. The economy is constrained by frozen assets, aid conditions, and banking isolation. A peace slogan aimed at India and Russia does not automatically loosen those constraints. It does, however, show how the Taliban now talk to capitals that will take meetings without demanding the same political package Washington and European governments still demand.
What to Watch Next
Three markers will tell whether the interview was more than a media event.
One is whether Pakistan and Afghanistan return to a written mechanism with monitors, not another short ceasefire. Islamabad has now restated that it wants written guarantees. Kabul has restated that it wants an end to strikes and no interference.
Two is whether India-Taliban contact stays in the humanitarian and commercial lane or becomes a security conversation that Islamabad treats as a red line.
Three is whether any Russia-India connectivity plan involving Afghan territory moves from podcast language into financing and security guarantees. Until that happens, it remains a talking point attached to a war that has not stopped.
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Original article: Taliban Says War Benefits No One Amid India-Pakistan Tensions on Planet Today 🚀
Automatically republished from the main blog.