After India, Afghanistan set to restrict river water to Pakistan

Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is planning to build dams and restrict water to Pakistan, according to the Afghan Information Ministry. The order to build a dam on the River Kunar “as fast as possible” came from Taliban Supreme Leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada. This public assertion about the “right to water” came just weeks after Afghanistan and Pakistan fought a war that left hundreds dead. Afghanistan’s decision follows India‘s decision of water-sharing with Pakistan. India kept the Indus Waters Treaty, under which it shared water of three western rivers, in abeyance after Pakistani and Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam on April 22.
The Afghan Ministry of Water and Energy said that Supreme Leader Akhundzada had instructed the ministry to begin construction of dams on the Kunar River as soon as possible and to sign contracts with domestic companies, Muhajer Farahi, the Deputy Minister of Information, posted on X on Thursday.
London-based Afghan journalist Sami Yousafzai said, “After India, it may now be Afghanistan’s turn to restrict Pakistan’s water supply…”. The Supreme Leader, according to Sami Yousafzai, “ordered the [water and energy] ministry to sign contracts with domestic Afghan companies rather than wait for foreign firms”.
The 480-km-long Kunar River originates in the Hindu Kush mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, near the Broghil Pass close to the Pakistan border. It flows southward through Kunar and Nangarhar provinces before crossing into Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it joins the Kabul River near the city of Jalalabad. The Kunar is called the Chitral River in Pakistan.
The Kabul River, into which the Kunar flows, is the largest and most voluminous transboundary river between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Kabul River joins the Indus near Attock and is crucial for the irrigation and other water needs of Pakistan, especially its Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A reduction in the water flow of the Kunar River would have a cascading effect on the Indus, thereby, would hit Punjab as well.
This move by Afghanistan follows weeks-long deadly clashes along the Durand Line, its de-facto border with Pakistan, which Kabul calls illegitimate. The Durand Line, drawn by the colonial British, divided the Pashtun homeland into two.