“Pakistan has always strived for maintaining peace and stability in the region, but at the same time shall not compromise on the safety and security of our citizens, which remains our top priority,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar emphasised on a social media post as he detailed how Pakistan’s security forces carried out a ground operation on Sunday along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 Khawarij (members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan). Later, the minister also shared footage of the strikes and noted how the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country.
While propaganda accounts have been quick to raise questions about the scale of the operation, with many churning out human interest stories to give an impression that Pakistan deliberately attacks civilian targets, such time-stamped evidence will go a long way in building our case in front of international bodies. What these critics refuse to acknowledge is how terrorism inside Pakistan has surged to unimaginable levels after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021, far more pronouncedly in the last two years. Hence, there remains zero tolerance in Islamabad for threats perceived to be emanating from Afghan soil. Islamabad is now saying, with unusual bluntness, that the sanctuary question will no longer be treated as a diplomatic inconvenience to be managed through statements, meetings and temporary quiet along the border.
The Taliban government may continue to deny harbouring the TTP and its affiliates. However, these denials have grown thinner with each attack inside Pakistan – attacks that are no longer merely frequent, but more brazen, more theatrical and more deliberately designed to advertise the militants’ reach. A movement that demands to be treated as the government of Afghanistan cannot pick and choose the obligations of sovereignty. If it controls territory, it is responsible for what that territory enables. If it does not control the militant networks operating from it, that is not a defence. Strictly speaking, it counts as an admission of failure.
Pakistan’s problem, however, is not solved by stating this case more forcefully. The test now is how military pressure will be converted into a strategic effect. Strikes can destroy camps, weapons and commanders, yet they cannot, by themselves, change Kabul’s calculus unless they are tied to a sustained diplomatic and intelligence design. Otherwise, every operation becomes another punctuation mark in a sentence that never ends. Pakistan should put before Kabul and its interlocutors a specific dossier: named commanders, camps, facilitators, financing channels, routes and timelines for action. China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye should not be asked merely to cool tempers. Rather, they should be pressed to test whether the Taliban can act like a state when confronted with verifiable demands.
Peace cannot mean Pakistan absorbing violence for the sake of regional optics. *