Within the early hours of September 24, Pakistan carried out air and drone strikes on ten areas inside Afghanistan. Subsequently, Afghan media recognized Kandahar – the place the Taliban’s supreme chief (Amir-al-Mu’minin) Hibatullah Akhundzada relies – in addition to Khost and Paktia because the provinces focused. A couple of hours later, Pakistani Data Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on social media that the strikes had been “deliberate, exact, calibrated and proportionate” and had been “strictly restricted to recognized navy goals immediately linked to the tried assaults in opposition to Pakistan.” “Tried assaults” was a reference to earlier Pakistani claims that it had shot down ten rudimentary drones launched from inside Afghanistan that entered Pakistani territory with a “comfortable kill” strategy.
Two days earlier, on September 21, Pakistani air strikes on Kunar and Paktika provinces killed three civilians – a person, a girl, and a lady – in Kunar’s Nurgal district. Islamabad claimed to have killed 28 militants within the assault. The civilian casualties, which had been confirmed by UNAMA, noticed Afghan protesters hitting the streets in Kabul and elsewhere.
This Pakistani strike was in response to an assault on a police compound in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohat, killing not less than 16 law enforcement officials on September 18. On that day a vehicle-borne explosive system breached the police compound throughout Friday prayers. This was adopted by an armed assault by militants. The assault was claimed by the Ittihadul Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), an alliance led by the Hafiz Gul Bahadar (HGB) group, which shares shut linkages with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Pakistani authorities recognized one of many attackers as an Afghan nationwide.
Pakistan has carried out air and drone strikes inside Afghanistan on not less than 15 events between October 2025 and September 2026. Non-public estimates counsel that greater than 1,100 civilians have been killed or injured by cross-border violence in Afghanistan this yr. An assault on a drug rehabilitation middle in Kabul in Could killed 269 individuals, resulting in requires the assault to be investigated as a battle crime.
Inside Pakistan, the loss of life toll of civilians and safety forces in terrorism-related incidents in 2026 thus far is near 1,700. Of those, 545 have taken place within the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the place the TTP and the IMP function.
Pakistani claims that Afghan soil is being utilized by the TTP and the IMP are supported by periodic studies from the U.N. monitoring committee, together with one launched in August 2026. The report unequivocally mentioned that the Afghan Taliban “continued their help” to the TTP. The Afghan Taliban has responded to such assertions by repeated public denials.
Behind the scenes, nevertheless, the Afghan Taliban could have tried to restrain the TTP. The U.N. report talked about that the Afghan Taliban authorities have “relocated roughly 2,000 TTP fighters and households from the Pakistani border to additional inside Afghanistan.” Akhundzada has reportedly “warned the TTP management via again‑channel communications to halt assaults concentrating on Pakistan or threat shedding the Taliban’s help,” it added. It’s unclear if any try was made to reign within the IMP as nicely.
Whereas efforts to manage the TTP could not have labored utterly, in response to information by ACLED, “HGB and IMP’s actions have lower than halved because the newest outbreak of hostilities between Afghanistan and Pakistan in late February, in contrast with the instantly previous interval.”
On February 27, Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab lil-Haq (Righteous Fury) in opposition to the Taliban in Afghanistan, marking the primary such assault on its former ally and protégé. On that event, “unprovoked firing” from throughout the border by the Taliban was cited as the rationale. Pakistan’s Protection Minister Khawaja Asif declared, “Now it’s open battle between us.”
Given the degrees of violence the TTP and the IMP continued to perpetrate inside Pakistan, the nation is going through a basic case of strategic blowback. Extra importantly, the sense of impunity with which Islamabad has repeatedly carried out its assaults in Afghanistan, regardless of their low efficacy, signifies severe lacunae in Pakistan’s counterterrorism technique. Most of those assaults have led to indignant statements by Taliban officers, vows of retaliation, and incidents of cross-border firing by Taliban troopers however little else.
Along with reining within the TTP and IMP, Pakistan appears to be pursuing a bigger strategic goal of discovering its misplaced leverage in Kabul. In Islamabad’s view, its former ally has gone rogue and demonstrating coercive energy, together with offering help to the anti-Taliban resistance fronts, is the one path ahead. A weak and consumer state in Afghanistan is the top state Pakistani institution has pursued for many years.
Through the days of the earlier Afghan Republic, the HGB largely spared the Pakistani state and as an alternative targeted its battle on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Submit-August 2021, backed by al-Qaida, the HGB has grown to be a distinguished face of jihadist insurgency in opposition to Islamabad. It’s numerically smaller than the TTP, however that hasn’t stopped it from finishing up among the extra advanced assaults on safety installations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Due to this fact, eliminating the IMP menace, if not the far bigger TTP, will probably tackle the blowback Islamabad is at present receiving for its previous insurance policies. Equally, repeated assaults together with some directed on the Taliban regime itself, might probably result in inner ruptures inside the faction-ridden Islamic Emirate and embolden the small pro-Pakistan components inside it.
That, nevertheless, is far simpler mentioned than performed. Regardless of studies of factionalism and inner variations inside the Kandahar (Rahbari shura or the management council) and Kabul (administrative) shuras of the Taliban, the Rahbari shura functioning below the strict Islamic edicts of the Supreme chief, nonetheless retains management and uncontested legitimacy. Furthermore, every assault by Pakistan thus far has additional raised anti-Pakistan sentiment inside Afghanistan. It might embolden the Afghan Taliban as nicely, who’ve little incentive to accede to Islamabad’s calls for. The ethno-nationalist Taliban regime with sturdy Pushtun id throughout the contested Durand Line might increase its head of Pushtun nationalism as soon as once more.
The Taliban appear to have learnt from their former sponsor’s playbook the artwork of cultivating strategic property and utilizing them as leverage. Making an attempt to bomb them into submission may very well be a myopic and counterproductive technique if there are any classes realized from the final twenty years of American intervention in Afghanistan.