International Crisis Group - 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2026

 International  Crisis  Group

10 Conflicts to Watch in 2026

Venezuela

Sudan

Ethiopia-Eritrea

Mali and Burkina Faso

Ukraine

Syria

Israel-Palestine

Israel and the United States vs. Iran and the Houthis

Myanmar

Afghanistan-Pakistan 

Venezuela

In late 2025, the United States commenced its biggest military buildup in the southern Caribbean in decades, apparently as part of designs to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power. In December, the U.S. coast guard began seizing tankers exporting sanctioned Venezuelan crude in what President Trump called a blockade. If Maduro, who has weathered economic pressure for years, does not bend, an attempt at ousting him by force may yet be in the offing.

The U.S. Navy’s Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group sails toward the Caribbean Sea under F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and a U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress. November, 2025. U.S. Navy / Petty Officer 3rd Class Gladjimi Balisage / Handout via REUTERS

During his first term, Trump turned the screws on Maduro, imposing severe sanctions, recognising an opposition leader as president and backing a bungled coup. On returning to office, the U.S. president first took a different tack, by dispatching envoy Ric Grenell to Caracas to seek a deal. Those efforts freed several U.S. hostages and persuaded Maduro to take back deported Venezuelans, while Trump allowed U.S. oil major Chevron to keep pumping crude in the country despite sanctions.

A more hawkish camp, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who is also serving as acting national security advisor – put paid to that approach. By April, the administration had stepped up punitive measures. This time, it framed its policy not as an effort to restore Venezuelan democracy, which presumably appeals little to Trump’s “America first” base, but as a fight to curb drug trafficking. In reality, while some top Venezuelan officials profit from cocaine transiting the country, none of the fentanyl ravaging U.S. communities comes from Venezuela.

The latter months of 2025 saw Trump and other officials ratchet up rhetoric, labeling Maduro a “narco-terrorist” and vowing to bring him to justice. The large U.S. naval task force deployed to the southern Caribbean also started blowing up small boats off Venezuela’s coast that it alleged were trafficking narcotics. Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who has long argued for foreign military pressure to unseat Maduro and apparently knows Rubio well, appears to be influential in shaping U.S. policy.

Trump seems unlikely to step back without something he can paint as a win.

So, what now? The Venezuelan military’s upper echelons, which have close ties to Maduro’s government, seem unlikely to turn on him. A full-fledged U.S. invasion is probably not in the cards, either. Influential figures close to Trump vocally oppose the idea. In any case, few U.S. ground forces are in the Caribbean. But Trump seems unlikely to step back without something he can paint as a win. He might launch attacks on military installations or clandestine airstrips. He looks certain to interdict more oil tankers. Ordering a decapitation strike on Maduro himself would be a more dramatic step, though a loyalist or at least someone bent on preserving existing power structures would likely take Maduro’s place. Or the regime might collapse into factional infighting.

A negotiated outcome is perhaps not impossible. In seeking an off-ramp, Maduro reportedly offered the U.S. a major stake in Venezuelan oil companies. Some analysts suggest Trump might accept a big chunk of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, rather than Maduro’s departure, as a way of claiming a mission accomplished. Alternatively, perhaps Maduro would relinquish power if given either guarantees that he would be shielded from prosecution in the U.S. and the International Criminal Court or exile somewhere he sees as safe – Russia, most likely, but perhaps Türkiye or a Gulf state. But even if this happened, a peaceful transition would require at least interim power sharing between the opposition and the parts of the current regime that run the central state, the judicial and security systems, and the vast majority of local authorities.

Either an oil deal with Maduro himself or a transition entailing power sharing would be a tough sell for Machado, as well as hardline allies such as Rubio who hope that regime change in Venezuela will pave the way for something similar in Cuba. Trump himself would have to impose the compromise.

Advocates of overthrowing the whole system argue that the risks are overstated. Failed regime changes in the Middle East hold no lessons, they say, given that Venezuela is not riven by sectarian divides and has a democratic history to fall back on. Certainly, many Venezuelans and the country’s neighbours are frustrated by years of failed diplomacy to end the country’s political crisis. Most would like to see the back of Maduro. A decade-long humanitarian disaster, which has turned roughly a quarter of Venezuela’s population into refugees, is set to worsen as hyperinflation looms again.

But military action to remove Maduro is more likely to go wrong than not. Some state forces could rebel, but parts of the military’s top brass would likely resist regime change. Few would trust amnesty from Washington or Machado. Armed groups active in much of the country would exploit any power vacuum to entrench or extend their territorial control. These include well-drilled colectivos with a foothold in poor urban neighborhoods as well as the “citizen militias” that Maduro has recently mobilised. Criminal gangs are present in cities and the countryside. The National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group that has several thousand hardened fighters across Venezuela, has repeatedly committed to turn its fire on any foreign forces that arrive. In short, military regime change is more likely to trigger chaos; further refugee flows; and a protracted, if low-intensity, conflict than a smooth transition to something better. 

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Sudan

Gruesome footage from Darfur, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went on a killing spree after seizing the town of El Fasher in late October, should spur greater efforts to end a war that remains largely ignored. Thus far, though, President Trump’s pledge in November to personally help end the war has yielded nothing.

Sudan’s latest civil war erupted in April 2023, triggered by a struggle within the junta that took power after dictator Omar al-Bashir fell four years earlier. It pits the Sudanese army, together with an array of Islamist militias and former rebels, against the RSF, which is allied with other ex-insurgents and backed by foreign mercenaries. In the Bashir regime’s waning days, the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, grew into a paramilitary force that could rival the army, enriched by trafficking gold and battling the Houthis in Yemen.

Today’s fighting [in Sudan] ... has created the world’s worst humanitarian calamity.

Today’s fighting, which started in the capital Khartoum and soon engulfed other parts of the country, has created the world’s worst humanitarian calamity. Millions of people have been displaced, and millions more need life-saving aid. The UN has reported pockets of famine throughout the country, especially in territory held or besieged by the RSF, as both sides block aid delivery. The UN has also documented widespread sexual violence, especially against women and girls.

Momentum has swung back and forth. Early on, the RSF grabbed most of Khartoum, advanced into Sudan’s riverine heartland and looked as though it might march on Port Sudan, the army’s de facto headquarters. Emirati backing was pivotal. While the United Arab Emirates denies its involvement, extensive reporting has documented arms flows from the Gulf country to Sudan’s battlefields. Abu Dhabi is close to Hemedti and suspicious of the army’s ties to Bashir-era Islamists. It seems to believe that backing the RSF will strengthen its foothold in Africa.

Despite this support, the tide turned in late 2024. Egypt and Türkiye, frustrated by Emirati meddling, and Iran, looking to shore up its influence, upped arms sales to the military, which, as Sudan’s internationally recognised government, could also purchase weapons on the open market. Saudi Arabia, which had mostly stayed neutral, lent the army stronger backing. An army offensive recaptured Khartoum in March 2025 and pushed the RSF back west of the Nile into Darfur and the Kordofan region.

A Sudanese army soldier stands next to a destroyed combat vehicle as Sudan’s army retakes ground and some displaced residents return to the ravaged capital in the state of Khartoum Sudan. March 2025. REUTERS / El Tayeb Siddig

Any hope that battlefield shifts might yield calm faded fast. The RSF doubled down, with the UAE seemingly pouring in heavier weapons. Long-range RSF drones struck as far east as Port Sudan. The RSF, joined by civilian politicians, set up a parallel government in Nyala, in Darfur’s south. While they aspire to be a rival to the army-appointed administration, most of the RSF-backed officials are in exile and have little authority.

In October, the RSF overran El Fasher, the army’s last redoubt in western Sudan. This operation deepened Sudan’s de facto partition, with Darfur and much of Kordofan in the west held by the RSF and the center and east controlled by the army. Many Sudanese have suffered during the war, with the army shelling civilian areas and both sides engaging in ethnic cleansing, including mass killings, especially when towns change hands. In El Fasher, RSF fighters slaughtered civilians, often filming themselves doing so. Satellite images appeared to show pools of blood visible from space.

The El Fasher atrocities ought to galvanise outside powers that thus far have given the war too little attention.

The El Fasher atrocities ought to galvanise outside powers that thus far have given the war too little attention. During a White House visit in November, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked Trump to help resolve the conflict. Trump envoy Massad Boulos (who is also the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany) had already spent the summer negotiating a truce in conjunction with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

But those efforts are now stuck, as fighting rages in Kordofan and the army continues to reject the ceasefire proposal. The idea of talks faces fierce resistance within the army command and among its allies. Powerful Islamists from the Bashir regime and former Darfuri rebels fear a truce will cement the RSF’s grip on western Sudan. Hemedti is more amenable to negotiations but continues to escalate, even after officially accepting the ceasefire. Prickly Saudi-Emirati relations pose another obstacle: in early December, Emirati-backed forces in Yemen seized territory from Saudi-backed rivals, compounding friction between the two countries over Sudan.

Trump is best positioned to halt the war. If he can get Abu Dhabi to stop sending arms to the RSF during a truce, then Riyadh and other capitals would need to persuade the army to accept the U.S. proposal and limit supplies to their ally as well. Ideally, that would create space for permanent ceasefire arrangements and a process aimed at reunifying Sudan and establishing a new civilian-led transitional government. Sadly, it is difficult to imagine a lasting peace that does not offer a political role to the current belligerents – however unpalatable that may be for many Sudanese. It will be a tall order to piece Sudan back together after this devastating war, but a truce is the first step.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Ethiopia-Eritrea

With Sudan ablaze, a clash between two of its neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, could tip the Horn of Africa into all-out conflagration. Addis Ababa and Asmara, having traded barbs for months, may be edging toward war. A distracted world is largely ignoring this brewing crisis, too.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed blames Eritrea for stirring up trouble in his country by training and arming anti-government militias. Eritrea, in turn, paints Ethiopia as the aggressor. Abiy insists that he seeks to end his country’s status as the world’s most populous landlocked country. Asmara worries that he aims to reconquer its ports, to which Ethiopia enjoyed unfettered access before Eritrea’s 1993 secession.

If the question of Ethiopia’s sea access and Eritrea’s demand for the respect of its territorial sovereignty dominate public discourse, the roots of today’s tensions are of more recent vintage.

After Abiy came to power in 2018, ending the three-decade rule of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), he quickly forged an alliance with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki. Isaias had fought alongside the TPLF in the 1974-1991 civil war that ousted military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. He later fell out with TPLF leaders and has long considered them bitter enemies. Abiy, bidding to consolidate his rule amid stiff opposition from the TPLF, saw Asmara as a useful ally.

Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed during the national anthem at the Inauguration ceremony marking the reopening of the Eritrean Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia July 16, 2018. REUTERS / Tiksa Negeri

Two years after Addis Ababa’s rapprochement with Asmara, war erupted between Ethiopia and the Tigrayan leadership. Eritrean troops fought on the side of the federal government, as did allied militias from the Amhara and Afar regions, to Tigray’s south. At the end of 2022, federal forces overwhelmed Tigrayan defenses. Talks in Pretoria, South Africa resulted in the signing of a cessation of hostilities deal in early November 2022.

The war’s end brought relief but opened new fissures. Isaias opposed the peace negotiations, from which he was excluded. He felt that the Tigrayan leadership was on the run and should be dealt a decisive blow. Abiy, however, preferred to engage with a weakened TPLF leadership, no doubt hedging against the danger of future confrontation with Eritrea.

Since that deal, Addis Ababa has fought a shadow war with both Asmara and Ethiopia’s Amhara community. Abiy accuses Eritrea of supporting an insurgency by an Amhara militia known as Fano as well as Oromo Liberation Army rebels active in the country’s largest region, Oromia. Then, on 1 September, Abiy said Ethiopia’s “mistake” of giving up sea access would be “corrected”.

Fractures within Tigray add another volatile element. In the war’s aftermath, the Tigrayan leadership descended into infighting. One camp is led by Getachew Reda, the TPLF’s representative at the Pretoria talks who favors re-engagement with Addis Ababa. The other, whose most prominent face is former regional leader Debretsion Gebremichael, sees the Pretoria deal and its aftermath as a humiliating surrender. In a surprise turn, Debretsion’s faction has now forged ties with Tigray’s old enemy in Asmara and forced Getachew and his associates to flee to the Ethiopian capital.

All sides are now locked in a staring contest. Ethiopia and Eritrea have reportedly extensively rearmed following the Tigray war. Factions in Tigray have clashed, dragging in federal forces. Amhara militias appear to enjoy Asmara’s support. The leadership of Afar, which abuts Eritrea’s lowlands near its seaports, has cast its lot with Addis Ababa.

An Ethiopia-Eritrea war could ... morph into a regional conflagration.

The last full-fledged Ethiopia-Eritrea war, from 1998 to 2000, featured World War I-style trench fighting in which tens of thousands of soldiers died. Today, Sudan’s war adds to the dangers. Asmara backs the Sudanese army. Addis Ababa has strived to maintain neutrality but could step up support for the Rapid Support Forces in the event of a new conflict. An Ethiopia-Eritrea war could thus morph into a regional conflagration.

There are reasons to hope Ethiopia and Eritrea will not step off the cliff. Neither can predict the outcome of a costly war that could well turn into a quagmire. Ethiopia’s leadership wants continued support from the International Monetary Fund, which new hostilities would imperil. Few in Tigray want more fighting so soon after the last devastating round.

Still, considering the stakes, more needs to be done to mitigate risks. Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, which were all pivotal in securing the Pretoria agreement, should shuttle between the two capitals, emphasising the dangers if they should come to blows. Others with influence in Addis Ababa and Asmara – the U.S. especially but also China, the European Union, Gulf Arab countries, Türkiye and the UN – should reinforce that message. A new confrontation, this time between two states and their powerful armies, would be ruinous for a region already devastated by the Tigray conflict and now Sudan’s war.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Mali and Burkina Faso

Since September, jihadists have imposed a partial blockade on Mali’s capital, Bamako, heralding a new phase in the Sahel’s broader war. Militants probably want to consolidate their hold on rural areas and squeeze the country’s military authorities rather than seize the city. But in both Mali and neighbouring Burkina Faso, the risk of regime collapse and further chaos is growing.

Some fourteen years ago, militants linked to al Qaeda, together with mostly Tuareg separatists, overran cities in the north before the jihadists sidelined their erstwhile Tuareg allies. French and African forces stopped the militants’ march south. But since then, fighting pitting the army and its foreign backers against jihadists has torn up the countryside in central and northern Mali as well as in much of Burkina Faso. The most powerful militant group today is an al-Qaeda affiliate called Jamaat Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), headed by former Tuareg rebel Iyad Ag Ghali, though a small Islamic State branch is active in the region, too.

The war has also upended Sahelian politics. Popular discontent with civilian leaders and French-led foreign forces’ failure to contain militants helped fuel coups in all three central Sahel countries between 2020 and 2023. New military regimes have severed ties with the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc and with most Western partners. Their anti-French discourse and calls for state sovereignty have resonated, especially among young people still furious at overthrown elites. Burkinabé leader Ibrahim Traoré has become something of an anti-imperialist folk hero for young people throughout Africa.

Like their ousted predecessors ... military leaders have utterly failed to beat back insurgents.

Like their ousted predecessors, though, military leaders have utterly failed to beat back insurgents. Today, they partner with Russian forces – former Wagner Group paramilitaries rebranded as the Africa Corps – not France or other European governments. But their offensives, shorn of any effort to win over locals, have replicated earlier governments’ mistakes but with even greater harm to civilians.

In Mali, insurgent fighters have made striking gains over the past two years. Assaults on key infrastructure, army bases and checkpoints have killed dozens of troops. The army tried to restrict access to fuel in the central and western countryside to handicap the jihadists. Militants, in turn, escalated their attacks on supply lines, disrupting routes to Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, whose ports handle the vast majority of landlocked Mali’s trade.

Then, in early September, militants turned up pressure on Bamako, disrupting fuel supplies while imposing gender segregation on travellers and veiling on women going to and from the capital. Kidnapping has long generated revenue for Sahel militants, but an estimated $50 million ransom allegedly paid for two abducted Emiratis has left JNIM especially flush.

Motorcycles line up near a closed petrol station, amid ongoing fuel shortages caused by a blockade imposed by al Qaeda-linked insurgents in early September, in Bamako, Mali, October 31, 2025. REUTERS / Stringer

In response, the Malian army and Russian forces have tried to protect main highways. Military escorts accompany long fuel truck convoys, while air and ground offensives hit militant positions. By late November, several convoys were making it through under military protection, which reduced queues at gas pumps and slightly improved the electricity supply, particularly in Bamako.

JNIM’s goals are likely twofold. First, it wants Malian forces bogged down in cities and along major roads so it can extend its rural ties. It particularly wants to make inroads among southerners, who are mostly from the Mandé-speaking majority rather than the Tuareg, Arab or Fulani minorities who currently fill most of JNIM’s ranks. Secondly, it hopes that pressure could topple the authorities. Jihadists show little appetite for a fight over the capital itself. But if discontent at the authorities evolves into protests, then the instability would weaken Bamako and perhaps even yield a new government that is less hostile and more willing to recognise JNIM’s influence.

After four years in power, the Malian authorities are under increasing strain.

After four years in power, the Malian authorities are under increasing strain. Having already shrunk the country’s civic space, they constricted it further in 2025, dissolving political parties, arresting two former premiers and forcing numerous activists into exile. An alleged coup attempt in August, followed by purges, suggest friction within the military. The authorities’ initial hope that minerals, including gold and lithium, could refill state coffers is fading. For all their promises, they have done little to ease the difficulties that many younger Malians feel.

As Mali’s south and west become new battlegrounds, fighting continues in northern Mali and across much of Burkina Faso. The Burkinabé authorities’ decision to arm thousands of civilians, often putting them on the front line against jihadists, has raised the death toll. In 2024, before JNIM appeared to bring in fighters from Burkina Faso to reinforce cadres in Mali, the group laid siege to some 40 towns and villages. Now, it is threatening to cut off supply routes to Ouagadougou, where Burkina Faso’s military regime is arguably even more susceptible than Mali’s to another coup.

Absent drastic change, things look bleak. In Mali, military leaders should consult a wider array of social and political forces about the country’s future. The fuel crisis highlights Mali’s dependence on cordial relations with its West African neighbors and the importance of repairing ties. The authorities need to contemplate dialogue with insurgents, too. It is an uncertain course. Jihadists have used ceasefires in the past to consolidate their control of captured regions, and negotiations would require painful compromises from the government. But few other options remain. The window for diplomacy is narrowing, but it is not yet closed.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Ukraine

On the battlefield, Ukraine remains on the defensive. It lost its foothold in Russia’s Kursk region in the spring. Russia is grinding ahead along the rest of the front. Its army has an edge in troop numbers, missiles and precision-guided munitions. It has advanced around Pokrovsk and Siversk, cities in the Donetsk region, Huliaipole, a town in Zaporizhzhia, and Kupiansk in Kharkiv, and it has taken the fight to new areas, seizing parts of Dnipropetrovsk, west of Donetsk, and Sumy, in the north.

Thus far, though, Russia has not decisively broken Ukrainian lines. Gains have been slow and painful. Fighting over nearly four years has left hundreds of thousands of Russians dead and injured. High interest rates, an expensive ruble, low oil prices and a growing budget deficit are weighing on Russia’s economy, along with Western sanctions, though admittedly the Kremlin has defied repeated predictions that economic woes will hobble its war effort.

Kyiv shows no sign of giving up. The Ukrainian army is suffering attrition: personnel losses that likely also number in the hundreds of thousands and a chronic desertion problem. Russian bombardment has badly damaged Ukraine’s power grid. Corruption investigations prompting the departure of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, underline the commitment of Ukrainian institutions to root out graft but also the extent to which it permeates the echelons of power. Still, Ukraine continues to hold chunks of land Russia claims as its own. These include about a fifth of Donetsk, a heavily fortified zone that looks set to become the main battleground of 2026, and large parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts farther south. Ukraine has launched its own strikes deep inside Russia, targeting its oil infrastructure with long-range drones and missiles and hitting vessels dodging sanctions in the Black Sea.

What has changed this past year is less the battlefield than the politics – thanks to President Trump’s upending of U.S. support for Ukraine. As demonstrated most dramatically during Zelenskyy’s White House meeting in February, Trump frequently blames Kyiv for starting the war and paints Zelenskyy as obstructionist for refusing to fold despite, in Trump’s eyes, his weaker hand. The U.S. still shares intelligence with Ukraine, despite a brief cutoff in March, but it has severed financial aid, pushing that burden onto Europe. The rest of NATO is now footing the bill for U.S. weapons and ammunition as well as matériel purchased in Europe and elsewhere. Despite the U.S. being part of the trans-Atlantic alliance, Trump has positioned Washington as a mediator between Kyiv and other NATO capitals, on one hand, and Moscow, on the other, in peacemaking efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump pose on a podium after they arrived to attend a meeting at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S., August 15, 2025. Sputnik / Gavriil Grigorov / Pool via REUTERS

Diplomacy so far has followed a pattern. First – usually after meetings between Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin – a draft deal leaks that leans Russia’s way, though whether the proposed terms reflect Putin’s actual position or simply something Witkoff believes Moscow might accept is unclear. European leaders and Zelenskyy scramble to table a more balanced alternative. U.S. diplomats present that option to Putin, who rejects the new terms. Several such cycles have not revealed either side’s precise bottom lines, but main points of contention are clear. Ukraine has agreed to a ceasefire along the existing front as part of a plan that would accept de facto Russian control of the Ukrainian territory it currently holds, with further negotiations to follow. Putin, for his part, demands irreversible Ukrainian concessions in exchange for a truce.

In particular, he wants Zelenskyy to cede parts of the Donbas that Ukrainian forces still hold. The U.S. has proposed a demilitarised or economic zone in those areas, which Zelenskyy at the end of December suggested he might be open to, provided Russia also pulls troops out. Zelenskyy has also offered to forgo NATO membership, a longstanding Russian demand made easier to swallow by the fact that many in Washington oppose it as well. But he still wants U.S. security guarantees, believing that, for all the evidence of U.S. unreliability, such promises will stay Russia’s hand, particularly if Congress ratifies them. A strong, Western-backed Ukrainian army seems a far safer bet for deterring Russia.

What Putin, who has demanded limits on the Ukrainian military’s size and foreign support and previously rejected Western security guarantees for Ukraine, will accept remains unclear. Ukrainian and most European leaders believe he wants not only the Donbas but a pliant government in Kyiv, shorn of a strong deterrent. Other details are contentious, too, particularly whether Europe would lift sanctions on Russia and accept Putin’s rehabilitation on the global stage, which Trump administration officials promote as part of a deal.

The disdain [Trump] and other top U.S. officials show for Europe makes them and Ukraine ever warier of offering concessions, especially given Putin’s recalcitrance.

In principle, the U.S. shuttle diplomacy under way could help bridge gaps, but a flawed process hardly helps. Witkoff himself often appears to misunderstand Putin’s demands, making it almost impossible to know, despite the two men spending hours together, whether Putin’s calls for Ukraine’s neutrality and demilitarisation afford any space for its sovereignty and safety. Trump’s broader Europe policy has forced European capitals to take their own security and defense spending more seriously. But the disdain he and other top U.S. officials show for Europe makes them and Ukraine ever warier of offering concessions, especially given Putin’s recalcitrance.

How events will unfold is hard to know. Trump shows no inclination to try changing Putin’s incentives by piling on more sanctions, for example, or sending more weapons to Ukraine. But nor, thankfully, has he used the White House’s full leverage – permanently stopping intelligence sharing or arms sales, for example, or linking Ukraine diplomacy to trade policy – to compel Ukraine and Europe to accept a deal closer to Russia’s terms. If that pattern holds, the likeliest scenario in 2026 is a continued brutal slog at the front.

The big question is what happens if Trump, losing patience, tries to force a skewed deal on Ukraine and Europe. An agreement along those lines would likely pave the way for an unstable Europe and an emboldened Moscow pressing elsewhere. If, however, Kyiv and European capitals reject such a deal and Trump does cut off intelligence and weapons, European leaders will have to work even harder to pick up the slack. Ukraine would be unlikely to collapse immediately, but it would suffer more battlefield setbacks and its people greater hardships.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Syria

Since seizing power in late 2024, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has won over a sceptical world. It is quite a coup for a man who only a decade ago led what was arguably al-Qaeda’s most important affiliate. It is also testament to bold U.S. diplomacy – President Trump’s embrace of al-Sharaa is a bright spot in his patchy Middle East record. But the Syrian leader’s gains abroad could be undone if he cannot curb sectarian bloodletting at home.

People gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) at the Umayyad Square, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 20, 2024. REUTERS / Ammar Awad

After al-Sharaa’s rebel militia, Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham, captured Damascus in a lightning offensive in December 2024, he inherited a country broken by thirteen years of civil war and a half-century of brutal dictatorship. Recognising the need for international support, Syria’s new leader, who already enjoyed ties to Türkiye, quickly moved to win over Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. The Saudi crown prince and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan then brokered a meeting between Trump and al-Sharaa in May. Al-Sharaa’s UN General Assembly speech in September was the first by a Syrian head of state in nearly six decades. Still more extraordinary was his cordial White House visit two months later.

Al-Sharaa’s meetings with Trump won Syria a reprieve from the array of U.S. sanctions imposed over the years on Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Europeans have wound down their own economic sanctions. Damascus has also joined the counter-ISIS coalition, which could bring in U.S. military support and make the new Syrian government, rather than the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Washington’s main partner on the ground.

At home, too, there has been progress. The UN estimates that more than 1 million Syrian refugees have returned. There is now more space to criticise the government. Public services have mostly continued and some – notably electricity – seem to be improving. Despite his past, al-Sharaa has not pursued an explicitly Islamist agenda.

Formidable challenges remain. Even with sanctions lifted, getting [Syria’s] war-ravaged economy going and attracting foreign investment will be hard.

But formidable challenges remain. Even with sanctions lifted, getting the war-ravaged economy going and attracting foreign investment will be hard. Frustration is growing –including among the Sunni Arab majority, which is the new authorities’ core constituency – at the power concentrated within a tight circle around al-Sharaa himself. Indirect elections held in October to choose a transitional legislature did little to widen representation.

Most troubling are two rashes of sectarian killing. In March, Assad loyalists overwhelmed government forces in the former regime’s coastal strongholds, where most residents are Alawite. To quash the insurrection, the government deployed thousands of former rebels, nominally but not yet operationally integrated into the army, while thousands of other pro-government forces and armed civilians flooded in.

The result was a sectarian massacre. Violence raged for three days, killing as many as 1,500 people. Al-Sharaa has since accelerated efforts to unify and professionalise the new state forces. But he has been slow to hold anyone accountable, and Alawites fear a repeat. Smaller gun battles with militia members in late December highlighted the persistent danger.

A second outbreak, in the predominantly Druze region of southern Syria, further terrified minorities and suggested that the authorities had learned little from what happened on the coast. Clashes on the edge of Suweida governorate between Druze and Sunni Bedouins – who for decades have wrangled over grazing land – ignited months of steadily rising tensions. In mid-July, Damascus sent in government troops – including some of those responsible for killing Alawites. Again, other pro-government forces entered the fray. Local Druze factions fought back, and video clips showing sectarian violence flooded social media. Negotiations between Damascus and Druze notables collapsed amid reports of further killings. Israel, responding to pressure from its own influential Druze population, launched airstrikes in support of Druze forces in Suweida.

Israel’s Suweida intervention capped months of expanding military action in Syria. Israel had already destroyed the country’s air force and navy after Assad’s fall, bombing several army bases as well. It proceeded to seize more territory in Syria’s south, portraying the move as necessary to protect itself from Islamists in power in Damascus. As the Suweida violence escalated, Israel struck the Syrian government’s armoured columns, its military headquarters and sites near the presidential palace.

Despite a U.S.-mediated ceasefire that leaves Druze forces in control of most of Suweida, the standoff continues. Many Druze, who had previously been open to working with Damascus, have now thrown in their lot with Hikmat al-Hijri, an influential sheikh who wants secession or an Israeli protectorate. Damascus has withheld state services and salaries but failed to elicit concessions from al-Hijri while exacerbating hardship for civilians.

Whether U.S. mediation can yield a Syria-Israel deal remains unclear.

Whether U.S. mediation can yield a Syria-Israel deal remains unclear. According to the proposal under discussion, Syria would limit its military presence in southern areas adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In turn, Syria wants Israel to withdraw from the land that it has taken since Assad’s fall and end airstrikes. Such a deal would likely not go much beyond restoring the status quo that has existed since a 1974 disengagement agreement, though on terms less favourable to Damascus, given the imbalance of power. Even a limited agreement would be historic, given the decades of friction between the two countries. But it would remain far short of normalisation and would probably not resolve the Suweida standoff. In any case, major stumbling blocks remain – particularly over the timing and extent of Israeli withdrawal.

ISIS remnants are another challenge. In December, a militant killed two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter during a joint U.S.-Syrian government operation. The attacker was a member of Syria’s security forces, apparently inspired or even directed by ISIS. The U.S. launched strikes on ISIS targets in response, and it continues to cooperate with Damascus. But the attack exposed gaps in vetting and command and control as well as the risks inherent in quickly integrating new personnel into state forces. More broadly, it reinforced fears of an ISIS resurgence, especially that the group might attempt to break the roughly 9,000 detained fighters and 26,000 family members out of facilities in Syria.

Then there is the SDF, which still controls much of oil-rich north-eastern Syria. Back in mid-March, the SDF agreed to incorporate its governance and military apparatus into Syrian state institutions before the end of the year, with key details left unresolved. U.S.-facilitated talks have produced little tangible progress since. The dispute reflects discord between the two sides – and, indeed, among many Syrians – over what power Damascus should devolve to local authorities.

The more time passes without progress in talks, the graver the risks. Damascus could attempt to take SDF-held areas by force. Ankara, viewing the SDF as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is giving al-Sharaa time to negotiate. But if tensions between Damascus and the SDF spike, or if Ankara comes to see SDF foot dragging as an obstacle to its own peace process with the PKK, then Türkiye might step in. Fighting in the north east could further erode the good-will that al-Sharaa has built up abroad. It might also prompt further meddling from Israel, which is voicing greater concern about Turkish military activity in Syria even as it expands its own.

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Israel-Palestine

The longest and bloodiest war in a century of Arab-Israeli conflict ground to a tenuous halt in October. Fighting that began nearly two years earlier with Hamas’s murderous raids in southern Israel ended with Israel having nearly obliterated Gaza, leaving more than one in ten of the strip’s Palestinians killed or injured and the vast majority homeless. A ceasefire is holding (at least in name – Israel has killed roughly 400 Palestinians since it started), but Gaza remains in limbo, its surviving population crowded into less than half the territory, much of it reduced to rubble. In the West Bank, the hardest-right government in Israeli history has accelerated land seizures and institutional changes seemingly designed to make de facto annexation a permanent reality.

Palestinians walk past the rubble following Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the area, after Israel and Hamas agreed on the Gaza ceasefire, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 10, 2025. REUTERS / Ramadan Abed

President Trump started out constructively on Gaza, helping push a January ceasefire deal over the line even before he returned to the White House. But rather than building on that momentum, he proposed emptying Gaza of Palestinians, breathing further life into an idea that was already moving from the fringes of Israeli discourse into the mainstream. In March, the administration threw its weight behind a renewed Israeli assault. For seven more months, the war’s horrors compounded. Israel’s offensive killed many thousands more people in Gaza, bringing the toll since October 2023 to at least 70,000 and likely many more. Isreal declared more than 70 per cent of the strip a no-go zone, herding Palestinians into ever smaller pockets. It turned food into a weapon, calibrating aid at famine’s edge while a U.S.-backed distribution system – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, designed to replace the U.N. effort – created lethal chaos at handout points. Half-hearted mediation was undercut by Trump’s refusal to use U.S. leverage to get Israel to stop, echoing Joe Biden’s approach but stripped even of the previous president’s tepid calls for restraint and relief supplies.

Only when Israel struck the Qatari capital, Doha, in September, attempting to assassinate Hamas leaders and killing a Qatari officer, did furious regional leaders collectively mobilise to press Trump to act. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have preferred to continue the war, the deal he signed – an amended version of what Trump had agreed upon with Arab leaders – largely served Israeli interests. Hamas’s response – accepting parts of the plan while putting others off for further discussion – was enough for Trump, by now bent on ending the war, to take as acceptance and stop a final Israeli advance that would have levelled what was left of Gaza City.

The October deal’s first phase saw Hamas release remaining Israeli hostages and Israel free some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. It divided Gaza in two: a smaller area containing nearly all the strip’s remaining residents, over which Hamas quickly reasserted control, surrounded by a larger one held by Israeli forces. The deal envisages overall governance of the strip resting, for an undefined transitional period, with an international Board of Peace, chaired by Trump himself, and an international executive arm that would oversee reconstruction. A committee of Palestinian technocrats would oversee other aspects of day-to-day administration. These bodies have yet to be established, and their respective mandates remain unclear.

Security provisions are even murkier. An International Stabilisation Force is meant to deploy as the Israeli military withdraws, with Egyptian- and Jordanian-trained Palestinian police – perhaps including vetted officers who served under the previous Hamas government – charged with safeguarding at least the Palestinian-held areas. But so far, potential troop contributors have baulked; the forces’ mandate and rules of engagement are vague, it is not clear who will pay, and no country wants to send soldiers to disarm Hamas against its will. A UN resolution endorsing the plan, which the U.S. sought to reassure contributors, resolved none of its ambiguities.

That the deal fudges the thorniest questions was probably necessary to win Israeli acceptance, but as a result, any further progress requires sustained tending by Trump’s team. Thus far, it is unclear how far U.S. mediators have gotten. Certainly, the core standoff remains: Israel expects Hamas to disarm before it pulls back troops and allows reconstruction; Hamas sees decommissioning as something for later, with offensive weaponry eventually handed over to a Palestinian entity. Gulf and European donors, meanwhile, are unwilling to fund rebuilding without guarantees that their investment will not empower Hamas or be demolished again by Israel. The best – maybe only – hope of progress lies in Arab and other governments hashing out a vision together and presenting Trump with a way forward he can then impose on Netanyahu. For now, though, little suggests that is happening: Trump, after meeting the Israeli prime minister in late December, largely echoed his demands on Gaza.

Israeli repression and dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank is going from bad to worse.

Meanwhile, Israeli repression and dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank is going from bad to worse. During the war in Gaza, Israel escalated restrictions on movement, economic suffocation, land confiscation and settlement expansion. It has relaxed none of these measures since the ceasefire, with ministers continuing to hint at plans to formally annex portions of the territory. The Trump administration and the United Arab Emirates – the Arab government with the closest ties to Israel – have denounced the idea of such a move, as has almost every other capital friendly to Israel. Yet they have done little to oppose, let alone roll back, Israel’s de facto imposition of sovereignty over chunks of the West Bank.

More than two years after the 7 October 2023 attack, Israel appears stronger than ever. Its military campaigns against Iran and Hizbollah have succeeded, at least by some measures, with Iran’s nuclear program set back and Hizbollah degraded. Hamas is a shadow of its former self. Yet Israel has dealt none of its adversaries a fatal blow. Netanyahu, whose strategy continues to rest on military strikes and not diplomacy, appears to envisage Israel in a state of permanent friction with much of the region, including governments that want to turn the page on years of upheaval.

The wars have reinforced Israeli dependence on U.S. military aid, even as Israel has hemorrhaged sympathy within the Democratic Party, especially among younger voters horrified by its pitiless Gaza campaign and Netanyahu’s extremist coalition. Among Republicans, support for Israel is fragmenting, too, driven less by concern for Palestinians than an “America first” agenda and, to some extent, a resurgence of genuine anti-Semitism. Whether changing political winds can shift the near-unconditional U.S. support that has fuelled Israel’s worst political tendencies fast enough to preserve any hope of Palestinian self-determination is unclear. But if Netanyahu’s post-7 October 2023 wars have wreaked a terrible toll on Palestinians, they have also brought steep costs for Israel.

As for Palestinians, the year ahead looks bleak. Palestine retains the recognition of more than 150 states, a seat at the UN and a right to self-determination that the world continues to affirm. But the capacity to pursue that right is being systematically dismantled. Political objectives have given way to bare survival. In Gaza, the question is whether Palestinians can hold on as individuals and hold together as a society. In the West Bank, it is how fast the territory shrinks, displacement accelerates and the governing Palestinian Authority’s writ dissolves. If Trump’s plan fails, most of Gaza’s population will remain trapped in a rump territory, with more than half of the strip under Israeli control. If the plan succeeds, it risks being negotiated by Israel, Arab states and Washington over the heads of the Palestinians, cementing their exclusion from decisions about their political future.

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Israel and the United States vs. Iran and the Houthis

Israeli strikes on Iran in June led to nearly two weeks of hostilities, with the U.S. eventually joining and bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. Now, international inspectors’ access to those sites has been curtailed, the status of Iran’s weapons-grade fissile stockpiles is undetermined and little movement has been made toward talks – let alone agreement – between Tehran and Washington. Top Western and regional officials fear another round of fighting. In late December, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly briefed the White House on plans for fresh strikes, citing Iran’s stated moves to reconstitute its ballistic missile program. For his part, President Trump indicated that Iran’s missile and nuclear activity could well precipitate renewed attacks.

Objects are intercepted in the sky after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel April 14, 2024. REUTERS / Amir Cohen

Early in 2025, Trump had kickstarted talks with Tehran, reaching out to its leadership while also ratcheting up sanctions. The first few discussions seemed to proceed well, until U.S. envoy Witkoff walked back his initial openness to limited Iranian uranium enrichment – under inspection and for civilian purposes – due to an outcry from Israel and Republican senators. Iran, which for decades has insisted on domestic enrichment, stepped up fissile material production in the hopes of gaining leverage in what it anticipated would be protracted negotiations. Tehran expected Trump, despite the 60-day deadline that he had imposed starting in April, to resist Israeli pressure for military action so long as the diplomatic track was alive. Instead, Israel struck a day after that deadline lapsed.

The attack caught Tehran off guard. In 2024, Israel had decapitated Iran’s most powerful non-state ally, Hizbollah, stripping the Islamic Republic of what it saw as crucial forward defence. Several exchanges of fire that year showed the porousness of Iran’s air defences. Israel’s initial salvoes hit not only nuclear facilities and missile launch sites but also Iran’s top brass and experienced nuclear scientists. The Iranian regime retaliated with more limited resources, but Tehran’s missiles still forced many Israelis to spend days in shelters and caused unprecedented damage to residential areas.

The roughly 12-day war killed nearly 700 Iranian civilians and 25 Israelis, with hundreds more injured.

For a while, Trump sat it out. Then he ordered massive ordnance strikes on nuclear sites deep underground. Iran responded with a largely perfunctory attack on a U.S. air base in Qatar, telegraphed to Washington in advance. Trump then called off the hostilities, forcing Netanyahu to abort a last bombing raid. The roughly twelve-day war killed nearly 700 Iranian civilians and 25 Israelis, with hundreds more injured.

The exchange seemed lopsided, but both Israel and Iran claim to have come out on top. Israel’s gains are clearer. It inflicted vast damage on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs; it displayed military superiority and intelligence penetration, as well as a defensive shield that blunted most incoming Iranian fire; and, importantly, it succeeded in convincing Trump to join the attack. But Tehran has its own victory narrative. It weathered a battle with two nuclear-armed states, causing more damage and disruption in Israel than officials there publicly acknowledge. The Iranian leadership regrouped after Israel’s devastating first strikes, capitalising on a wave of popular nationalism. Now, Tehran claims to be rehabilitating its missile program, which especially disturbs Israel.

As for the nuclear program, no foreign inspector has visited Iran’s wrecked sites since June. Tehran seems unlikely to get enrichment going again anytime soon, even covertly, given that Israel would probably find out and strike again. But the country’s nuclear capability has survived. Reportedly, more than 400kg of highly enriched uranium are unaccounted for, either buried in the rubble or hidden.

Trump himself continues to tout negotiations, but no one else shows much interest. Most U.S. officials have either put the file on the back burner or continue to expect capitulation from Tehran. Iranian hardliners see Trump’s earlier outreach as a charade, intended to provide cover as Israel readied for war. A more pragmatic camp believes that forestalling another attack requires compromise, particularly given Iran’s economic woes, but these leaders are still loath to signal weakness. For Israel, the June war and Trump’s participation have girded the conviction that Tehran should give up its nuclear program or face continued sanctions and more strikes – a perilous sort of “mowing the lawn” strategy in response to perceived nuclear or missile threats.

To some degree, the post-war lull gives all sides satisfaction: Israel and the U.S. have, for now, forced the Islamic Republic into zero enrichment, while Iran’s government believes that it absorbed their fire and is still standing. But Israel looks ever likelier to act in an attempt to finish the job, and a next round may well be worse than the last. Israel could start where it stopped in June, targeting Iran’s political leadership and destroying civilian infrastructure to undermine the regime. Rightly or wrongly, Tehran appears to think that it can inflict more fatalities with bigger barrages than in the past.

If Iran’s “axis of resistance” lies mostly in tatters, the Houthis remain potent.

Then there are the Houthis in Yemen. If Iran’s “axis of resistance” lies mostly in tatters, the Houthis remain potent. Throughout Israel’s 2023-2025 assault on Gaza, Houthi drones, ballistic missiles and even missiles carrying cluster warheads targeted Israel and severely disrupted Red Sea commercial shipping. Israel’s strikes on Yemeni ports, public institutions, power stations and leaders have only done so much to weaken the militant group. Iran appears to have upped arms deliveries, while the Houthis have also deepened ties across the Red Sea, including with Al-Shabaab in Somalia. If Israel escalates again in Gaza, attacks Iran, or hits Yemen directly, then the Houthis could respond with more strikes.

Ideally, the U.S. and Iran would shore up what is, in effect, a tense truce. One place to start would be a deal that parlays Iran’s involuntary suspension of uranium enrichment into an extended pause, accompanied by a return of inspectors and transparency on its fissile stockpile. The U.S. could reciprocate with partial sanctions relief, buying time for the two sides to hash out a longer-term arrangement. More ambitiously, U.S. diplomats could aim for quiet understandings by which Iran would forgo further support for its non-state partners in return for the U.S. stopping Israel from striking again.

Anything lasting seems like a stretch right now. Ultimately, though, some form of consortium that allows Iran and Gulf Arab states, possibly under U.S. supervision, access to fuel cycle material could offer a way to manage Iran’s nuclear program and reach a more sustainable calm in the Gulf.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Myanmar

The military regime that seized power in 2021, driving Myanmar into all-out civil war, has gained the upper hand after a period in which rebels looked ascendant. China has thrown its weight decisively behind the junta, while other Asian powers are betting that military control will persist after a sham vote installs a nominally civilian government. But the war is far from over.

A first round of elections took place on 28 December, with others scheduled for 11 and 25 January. Most people in Myanmar see the polls as a farce. Deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint remain detained and cut off from contact with the world. Their political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), along with other leading parties representing the country’s ethnic minorities, was dissolved after refusing to register. A landslide for the military-established Union Solidarity and Development Party thus seems certain.

Myanmar’s military chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing speaks during a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, 30 August, 2025. ANDRES MARTINEZ CASARES / Pool via REUTERS

China has also boosted the junta’s standing. Beijing had frowned upon the 2021 coup, seeing instability in Myanmar as damaging to Chinese investment and strategic interests. It viewed military chief Min Aung Hlaing as an antagonist, even implicitly greenlighting a rebel offensive in border areas in 2023. But over the past year, fearful of the regime’s collapse, Beijing has shifted its approach. Chinese President Xi Jinping offered diplomatic backing to the junta, meeting Min Aung Hlaing in Moscow in May and in Tianjin, China in August. It has also sent military technology, especially drones and counter-drone equipment, and engineered ceasefires requiring China-linked ethnic armed groups to hand back swathes of land they had just seized.

The junta has benefited, too, from an unpopular conscription policy that has sent tens of thousands of new recruits to the front. Though poorly motivated and trained, these soldiers have nonetheless helped the regime stabilise its defenses and retake territory.

China’s support signals to others, including India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that the regime is unlikely to fall. Even those that previously hedged now recognise they must deal with Naypyitaw. Such normalisation will likely accelerate when a quasi-civilian administration takes office at the end of March.

Much of [Myanmar’s] population rejects continued military dominion and loathes the junta for its savage repression.

Still, the regime seems unlikely to dislodge the rebel Arakan Army in Rakhine State and faces entrenched resistance elsewhere. Much of the population rejects continued military dominion and loathes the junta for its savage repression. This sentiment will find outlets, whether in armed opposition, underground political movements or civil disobedience, even if the military’s opponents are unlikely to regain momentum on the battlefield.

Moving from overt military rule to a post-election administration also carries risks for Min Aung Hlaing himself. Many in the Naypyitaw elite are wary of him cementing his grip on power and patronage. An internal putsch is unlikely, but jockeying for influence will be intense.

The National Unity Government, a parallel administration established by ousted politicians from the NLD as well as ethnic community leaders, retains broad popular support. But with battlefield victory unlikely and top leaders incarcerated, it has no evident political strategy for resisting the regime in Myanmar itself or, having banked on close ties to a now mostly indifferent Washington, for winning over Beijing and other Asian capitals.

All these developments bode ill for Rohingya refugees, who have no prospect of a voluntary, dignified return to Rakhine. Donor cuts make the plight of the 1 million Rohingya in camps in Bangladesh increasingly dire, driving risky onward migration. The approximately 400,000 Rohingya remaining in Rakhine are split between areas controlled by the regime and by the Arakan Army. Around 120,000 have been confined to regime-controlled camps around the state capital of Sittwe for more than a decade, also reliant on dwindling donor support and in desperate conditions.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Afghanistan-Pakistan

Afghanistan and Pakistan came to blows in early October, after Islamabad attributed a surge in attacks on Pakistani territory to insurgents based across the Afghan border. A ceasefire holds for now, but while militant violence persists, Pakistan will likely strike again.

That Pakistan is the country worst affected by the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of Afghanistan is, perhaps, unexpected. After 2001, Islamabad sheltered Taliban leaders as they mounted a rebellion against the Washington-backed Afghan government. Shortly after the Taliban returned to power, Pakistan’s intelligence chief was among the first foreign officials to publicly visit Kabul.

Relations have tanked, though, mainly because of the Taliban’s refusal to crack down on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Formed in 2007 to battle the Pakistani state, the TTP is a coalition of Islamist, mostly Pashtun militants who roam the porous 2,570km border between the two countries. By 2014, the Pakistani army had largely prevailed, pushing the TTP into eastern Afghanistan and consolidating state control of the tribal areas.

Upon capturing Kabul in 2021, the Taliban brokered talks between Pakistan and the TTP. The dialogue yielded a temporary ceasefire in 2022 but collapsed after the removal of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government, which was the main proponent of negotiations in Islamabad, that April. The TTP now demands that Pakistan again cede authority over parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a non-starter for many Pakistani politicians and military leaders, not to mention most of the region’s inhabitants.

In 2025 alone, militants killed more than 600 Pakistani soldiers and police.

Since 2022, violence in Pakistan has spiralled. In 2025 alone, militants killed more than 600 Pakistani soldiers and police, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan. Islamabad blames the TTP for these attacks, along with Baluch hardliners, who it believes, with some evidence, are backed by arch-rival India.

UN monitors assert that the TTP enjoys Taliban support, but the Taliban publicly deny that Pakistani militants are even in Afghanistan and say Islamabad provoked what they paint as homegrown violence. Behind closed doors, though, Taliban officials acknowledge the TTP’s presence but argue that neither state can control movement across the border. Kabul claims to have relocated many Pakistani militants, their families and others displaced by fighting in 2024 away from Pakistan’s border. But the Taliban authorities have not stopped cross-border attacks and refuse to hand over TTP leaders, which is what Islamabad demands. For Kabul, the TTP is too big, and its ties to the Taliban are too strong, while many Afghans in border areas also share its antipathy for the Pakistani state. A crackdown could backfire, even leading Taliban fighters or the TTP to join forces with the Islamic State against the Taliban.

Trucks loaded with supplies park along a road leading to the Torkham border, after Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan, following exchanges of fire between the two nations’ forces, in Torkham, Pakistan, October 15, 2025. REUTERS / Fayaz Aziz

In principle, it is a challenge Islamabad should comprehend. For years, the Pakistani military’s top brass fretted that cracking down on anti-India militants could provoke anger in its own ranks. Militants in contested Kashmir appear now to be mostly autonomous, but after they killed 26 civilians in an April attack, New Delhi ignored Islamabad’s protestations of innocence and pointed instead to its chequered history of backing militant proxies. India bombed Pakistani militant camps, military bases and cities, triggering the most perilous escalation between the nuclear-armed states in years.

On its Western flank, after the TTP killed 11 military personnel on 8 October, Pakistan conducted cross-border airstrikes, including its first ever on Kabul, ostensibly targeting TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud. Afghanistan retaliated with attacks on Pakistani military installations. Continued fighting claimed military and civilian lives on both sides. Reportedly, only pressure from Türkiye and Qatar stopped Pakistan from launching more extensive raids aimed at decapitating the TTP.

Talks between Afghan and Pakistani defence ministers in Doha, Qatar, in October yielded a ceasefire. But subsequent rounds in Istanbul have not eased bilateral tensions. Diplomatic ties are suspended. Trade has ceased. Islamabad’s actions against Afghan nationals on its territory, including mass deportations, have further angered Kabul. The Taliban, meanwhile, are fuelling Pakistan’s suspicion by forging closer ties with India.

Islamabad will likely lash out again if it traces another strike back to Afghanistan. The Taliban regime is badly outgunned, but its retaliation could still be lethal. Kabul claims to have missiles that can reach Pakistani cities, the use of which would likely provoke a still stronger Pakistani response.

Over the past year, Pakistani leaders have unexpectedly done much to win over the White House, with army chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meeting with President Trump several times. In South Asia, though, Islamabad’s foreign relations are far more fraught. After short wars in 2025 with both Afghanistan and India, another major attack by militants could upend the precarious calm that prevails between Pakistan and its two neighbours.

To go back to the list of 10 conflicts to watch in 2026, click here.

Notes

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