The United States has reaffirmed its support for Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks, a diplomatic signal that comes as Islamabad confronts renewed militant violence at home and rising security tensions along the Afghan border.
“The Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists,” the US State Department said, adding that Washington “supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against terrorist attacks.”
The remarks place the State Department’s position at the centre of the latest debate over Pakistan’s counterterrorism response and have come on the heels of the latest operation undertaken by Pakistan’s armed forces along the Afghan border. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said security forces had carried out a “well-planned intelligence-based ground operation” against militants belonging to Jamaatul Ahrar and Fitna al Khawarij, a term used by the state for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, after a series of terrorist incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Karachi, including the attack on a Pakistan Rangers Sindh camp.
Security officials later said an arrested suspect in the Karachi attack had disclosed that he had entered Pakistan from Jalalabad in Afghanistan around a week earlier. Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban authorities of allowing the banned TTP and affiliated groups to operate from Afghan soil. Kabul denies the charge and maintains that militancy inside Pakistan is Islamabad’s internal problem.
Earlier in February, as Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions escalated sharply, a State Department spokesperson said Washington supported Pakistan’s “right to defend itself” against attacks from Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers. The spokesperson said the United States was aware of the “outbreak of fighting between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban” and was “saddened by the loss of life.”
In the same statement, Washington directly criticised Kabul’s record. “The Taliban have consistently failed to uphold their counterterrorism commitments,” the State Department said, adding that “terrorist groups use Afghanistan as a launching pad for their heinous attacks.”
US diplomat Allison Hooker had also noted on X that she had spoken with Pakistan Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch in this regard.
In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” slamming the Taliban for “continu(ing) to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions.”
This position has become relevant again as Pakistan argues that the threat it faces is no longer limited to isolated militant violence or conventional internal policing. Officials say armed groups are using cross-border sanctuaries, digital propaganda networks, illicit financing channels and increasingly sophisticated tactics to strike inside Pakistan while relying on deniability from across the border.
Pakistan maintains that its operations are directed at terrorist infrastructure and are carried out in response to attacks inside the country.
The US position also comes at a moment when Pakistan is trying to reframe its counterterrorism case internationally. Islamabad’s argument is that armed groups attacking Pakistani citizens and security personnel cannot be treated as a purely domestic problem when their leadership, training routes, finances and propaganda networks cut across borders.
Pakistan remains a major non-NATO ally of Washington, and ties between the two countries have improved since President Donald Trump returned to office. Islamabad has also been involved as a crucial mediator in attempts to resolve the US-Israeli war with Iran, adding another layer to its engagement with Washington. For Islamabad, the State Department’s language is expected to be read as recognition of Pakistan’s security burden.