(MENAFN- IANS) Dhaka: The United States looks poised to return to the very theatre it once abandoned: Bagram. What Washington calls a tactical correction could quickly become a strategic rupture for South Asia. A renewed US push - now reportedly coordinated with Pakistan's security establishment - to retake Bagram Air Base and re-establish a foothold in Afghanistan risks detonating a broader regional conflagration, reigniting refugee flows, empowering jihadist networks and drawing Pakistan deeper into an unwinnable security quagmire. The question is not whether the dust will settle - it is how many countries, communities and lives will be buried beneath it.

US President Donald Trump - in what he frames as a move to correct the "perceived mistakes" of the previous administration - has signalled renewed US interest in re-establishing a presence at Afghanistan's strategic Bagram Air Base. Washington's overtures have already put Islamabad on notice to expedite preparations for possible operations that could include seizing Bagram and pushing to unseat or reshape the current Taliban-led regime. Reports indicate that, if such a military offensive goes forward, US–Pakistani forces could also strike selected targets inside Afghanistan and press against militant networks that threaten Pakistan, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The Afghan Taliban reportedly reacted to these developments by ordering their Defence Ministry and the so-called Tath'heri (Purification) Commission to erase biometric records of Taliban officials and fighters - a move described in reporting based on Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI) sources. The directive, according to those reports, reflects deep concern among Taliban leaders that renewed US pressure or the collapse of talks in places such as Bagram could trigger unilateral strikes or renewed efforts to dismantle their command structures.

Purging biometric data is both practical and symbolic. Practically, the obliteration of fingerprints, iris scans and other personal identifiers would complicate outside efforts to track commanders and rank-and-file fighters; it would make it easier for militants to slip across borders, adopt new identities, or seek refuge in other networks. Symbolically, the purge signals a loss of confidence in negotiations and a preparation for the worst-case scenario: a new round of kinetic pressure that could again turn Afghanistan into a launching pad for transnational militancy. Human-rights and humanitarian organisations have long warned about the risks posed by biometric systems in Afghanistan - both when those systems fall into insurgent hands and when their erasure removes accountability and traceability for vulnerable civilians.

Intelligence reporting suggests militants are preparing multiple fallback options: some operatives may attempt to embed with groups such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP); others may cross into Pakistan's tribal districts and border provinces. These movements, if they occur en masse, would re-create the destabilising dynamics Islamabad confronted after 2001 - namely, the spillover of fighters, weapons and illicit finance into Pakistan's frontier regions, with huge costs in lives, displacement and security.

There are already signs of high-stakes diplomacy and renewed security contact between Washington and Islamabad. Recent high-level interactions between US and Pakistani military and political leaders suggest a rapid re-engagement that some analysts read as a strategic gamble by Pakistan's military establishment to regain influence and secure economic or security concessions from Washington. Whether Islamabad will accept a subordinate role in a US-led operation in Afghanistan, however, is far from certain; domestic politics, sectarian fissures, and a host of ongoing internal insurgencies complicate any Pakistani commitment.

Pakistan's domestic situation makes any external adventure riskier. The Pakistani Army is already struggling to continue military operations in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; at the same time, serious political unrest in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and rising opposition activity inside the country would make the reallocation of troops and resources to a new Afghan campaign politically costly and operationally difficult. Moreover, the persistent threat from TTP and other domestic militant groups means Islamabad cannot simply redeploy its security apparatus without leaving critical vulnerabilities at home. In short, the calculus that once made Pakistan a willing partner for extraterritorial operations has changed. The Pakistani state of the 2000s is not the Pakistani state of today.

If Washington and Islamabad proceed with joint offensives to retake Bagram and press into Afghanistan, the immediate human cost will be severe. Large-scale operations - air strikes, special-forces raids and cross-border pursuit - will almost certainly result in significant civilian casualties, internal displacement, and the fracturing of fragile local governance structures. The re-introduction of sustained foreign military activity would also invite responses from regional powers. Iranian and Russian policymakers have repeatedly warned that aggressive US moves in Afghanistan could escalate into broader confrontations, while China has signaled unease about renewed American military footprints in Central and South Asia.

A renewed campaign could also spur a scramble over Afghanistan's illicit economies, particularly the opium trade. Historically, control over narcotics routes and processing has financed militias and threatened to entangle security services in corrupt economies. If Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) and other actors become further implicated in attempts to control smuggling routes or extract rents from the trade, that will accelerate domestic corruption and erode the legitimacy of state institutions.

Finally, the political fallout inside Pakistan could be profound. Opposition parties and civil society could mobilise against what they characterize as another dangerous foreign entanglement, while disenfranchised groups in restive provinces might exploit the distraction to intensify insurgencies. The combination of military overstretch, economic strain, and a renewed influx of fighters into the tribal belt would make Pakistan considerably less stable - and therefore less capable of managing the very threats a joint operation claims to resolve.

In short, the prospect of a US–Pakistan operation to retake Bagram is not simply a tactical matter of bases and battalions. It is a decision with wide-ranging geopolitical, humanitarian and domestic consequences: for Afghan civilians, for Pakistan's fragile polity, and for the broader regional balance.

Reoccupying Bagram would be a Pyrrhic victory. Even if US and Pakistani forces briefly seize terrain, the deeper strategic problems that have long plagued Afghanistan - fractured governance, opportunistic militancy, narcotics economies, and the absence of a legitimate, inclusive political settlement - will remain. Worse, a military-first solution risks exporting instability into Pakistan and across the region.

If there is to be any hope of stabilising Afghanistan, it must rest on clear political objectives, robust humanitarian safeguards, and a regional framework that includes not only the United States and Pakistan but also Afghanistan's neighbours.

Policymakers in Washington and Islamabad should weigh prudence over bravado: the lives lost, institutions shattered and refugee crises unleashed by another foreign intervention cannot be undone by a single airstrike or parade of proclamations.

(The writer is an award-winning journalist and Editor of Dhaka-based media outlet Blitz. He specializes in counterterrorism and regional geopolitics. Views expressed are personal)

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