“Let it be known that our choice is absolutely clear. It will always be Pakistan over everything,” said DG ISPR Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry on Friday, demanding the Afghan Taliban regime choose between Pakistan and the terror outfits operating from Afghan soil.
More than hollow chest-thumping, this line heard across political divides at home signals a state putting a single, testable proposition on the table: Kabul can either dismantle the ecosystem that enables attacks inside Pakistan, or live with consequences that will no longer be confined to diplomatic demarches. The Foreign Office has framed the trigger in plain language, making note of repeated terrorist attacks emanating from Afghan soil alongside provocative actions by the Taliban regime as it warned that further provocation will meet “measured, decisive and befitting” response.
Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab lil-Haq late Thursday, striking targets in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia in the wake of unprovoked firing in as many as 53 locations across the border. According to military sources, over 270 Afghan Taliban operatives and terrorists have been killed, while 12 of Pakistan’s troops have been martyred, and the campaign targeted militant infrastructure linked to groups responsible for attacks inside Pakistan.
That Defence Minister Khawaja Asif took to social media to exclaim, “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,” makes it clear to all and sundry that after years of Islamabad absorbing cross-border terrorism, Pakistan has resolved to defend its sovereignty, citizens and territorial integrity with all means necessary. Meanwhile, mediation bids floated by China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to face obstacles because Pakistan’s conditions for de-escalation are no longer rhetorical but grounded in verifiable action against militant sanctuaries.
Our argument begins at home. The Pakistani public has spent two decades learning what it means when militants are allowed a rear base across a porous frontier–the slow collapse of routine life, the securitisation of schools and the constant recalibration of what “normal” looks like in KP and Balochistan. A state that cannot keep its citizens safe forfeits legitimacy faster than it loses territory. Full stop.
This is why the Senate’s unanimous resolution matters. Political leaders have condemned the aggression, demanded that Kabul prevent the use of Afghan soil for terrorism and warned that any challenge to Pakistan’s sovereignty and national security would be met with a firm, proportionate and decisive response. T The resolution has also placed the moral ledger where it belongs: for over forty years, Pakistan has borne extraordinary economic, social and security burdens while hosting millions of Afghans and advocating for Afghanistan’s stability, often at immense cost to its own development and internal security.
The Taliban leadership has tried to keep two stories running at once, selling stability abroad while tolerating networks that target Pakistan. That double game has reached its limit.
Islamabad should still keep a channel open for de-escalation, but it must be on terms that end impunity rather than reward it. Kabul’s choice is narrower than it pretends. *