Dynasties, such as those of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, as well as nomad people from the Indian subcontinent (including modern-day Pakistan) have been invading and coming to Afghanistan for the past many centuries.

Before the mid-19th century, Afghanistan and some regions of Pakistan were part of the Durrani Empire and ruled by a successive line of Pashtun kings who had their capitals in Afghan cities.

Kaye's The Afghan War, Friedrich Engels describes "Afghanistan" as:[...] an extensive country of Asia [...] between Persia and the Indies, and in the other direction between the Hindu Kush and the Indian Ocean.

It formerly included the Persian provinces of Khorassan and Kohistan, together with Herat, Beluchistan, Cashmere, and Sinde, and a considerable part of the Punjab [...] Its principal cities are Kabul, the capital, Ghuznee, Peshawer, and Kandahar.

When Pakistan inherited this single-page agreement in 1947, which was basically to end political interference beyond the frontier line between Afghanistan and what was then colonial British India,[4] it divided the indigenous ethnic Pashtun and Baloch tribes.

The insurgents are members of Afghan-based and Afghan-led militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban (including the Quetta Shura chapter), the Haqqani network, or al-Qaida and others.

Many work in the construction sector, while others have found white-collar jobs such as information technology professionals for United Nations organisations and foreign companies in urban areas; they have an increasing demand due to their skills and mostly originate from the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In May 2011, several expatriate Pakistanis crossing the border at Torkham were routinely being harassed and bothered by intelligence agencies in Pakistan; some were asked repetitive questions as to why they were going to Afghanistan while others had their materials and laptops searched.