There is a hollow weight that settles in your chest when you watch the news and see names you will remember long after the screen goes dark. Lieutenant Colonel Junaid Arif. Major Tayyab Rahat. Azam Gul. Adil Hussain. Gul Ameer. Sher Khan. Talish Faraz. Irshad Hussain. Tufail Khan. Aqib Ali. Muhammad Zahid. Eleven men who left homes, children, mothers and small towns to wear the uniform and stand between our people and those who would do us harm. Their deaths in Orakzai are not a line on a casualty list; they are the tearing open of a wound our nation has been forced to tend for decades.
For over forty years, Pakistan has shown an uncommon mercy to people fleeing violence from across the western border. We fed them, sheltered them, opened our hospitals and schools, and in many places treated them as kin. That compassion has defined us. But compassion cannot be a shield for those who would use hospitality as a base to murder our citizens. The militants who struck in Orakzai – the fitna al-khawarij, the TTP – have taken refuge, training grounds and freedom of movement on terrain beyond our frontier. If sanctuaries exist, then those sanctuaries must be confronted.
Pakistan’s armed forces have again shown courage and sacrifice. Their duty was to defend our streets and villages; ours is to ensure they can do so effectively.
When I say Pakistan must act decisively, I mean a sustained, intelligence-led campaign against the TTP and their facilitators: operations that dismantle command centres, choke off logistics, and deny the enemy safe havens. I say this not out of bloodlust but out of duty. A state’s first obligation is to protect its people. Yet force alone is not a policy. Any operation must be professional, proportionate and legally grounded – aimed at the militants and their enablers, not at innocent civilians – so that our moral cause remains intact even as we pursue justice.
And here is the question we must pose to Afghanistan’s authorities, bluntly and without ceremony: Will you take responsibility for what happens on your soil? We sheltered your refugees when the world turned away. We called them brothers. Brotherhood implies reciprocity. If elements inside Afghanistan are sheltering, financing or directing groups that cross the border to murder Pakistanis, then silence is complicity. Arrests, handovers, joint operations, or verifiable measures to dismantle terrorist havens are not optional. If Kabul cannot or will not act, Pakistan cannot indefinitely absorb the price in blood.
This crisis must be answered on three parallel tracks. First, the military: persistent, precise pressure to degrade the TTP’s capabilities so that victories are lasting, not episodic. Second, diplomacy: expose the facts, demand verifiable action from those who control territory, and mobilise regional and international partners to apply pressure where unilateral measures cannot suffice. Third, domestic resilience: fortify intelligence fusion, protect vulnerable communities, and invest in governance where absence has allowed militants to thrive.
To those abroad who claim concern for regional stability, this is your test. Terrorism that enjoys sanctuary in one country will not stop at borders. The international community that once pledged to deny safe havens must recognise the threat spilling from Afghan soil into Pakistan and act with urgency – not only in statements of condolence but with concrete pressure and assistance to disrupt networks and prevent cross-border attacks.
We must also be candid about trade-offs. Military action carries risk. Civilians can be harmed; operations can generate blowback if not executed with discipline and care. That is why precision, accountability and an abiding respect for human life are strategic necessities, not optional niceties. The memory of Lt. Col. Junaid and Maj. Tayyab requires more than rhetoric; it requires a competent, humane policy that prevents more mothers from receiving the same call I heard on the news.
We have mourned long enough. The language of brotherhood, once a proud truth, rings hollow if it coexists with sanctuaries for those who plant bombs and send boys to die. Pakistan’s armed forces have again shown courage and sacrifice. Their duty was to defend our streets and villages; ours is to ensure they can do so effectively. If Afghanistan will not act to deny terrorists the freedom to strike, then Pakistan must pursue every lawful means to protect its people – and the world must not stand idle while the region burns.
For the families now grieving, and for the future of our children, that is not vengeance. It is survival. It is justice. It is what honour demands.
The writer is a freelance columnist.