On the night of June 10, Pakistan launched targeted airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Khost, Paktika, and Kunar provinces, resulting in the deaths of 26 hardcore terrorists. As per government officials, calibrated strikes targeted the sanctuaries and hideouts of Fitna-ul Khwarij (FAK) in response to ongoing cross-border terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. The operations specifically targeted the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), outfits that Pakistan holds responsible for a recent surge in terrorist attacks across the border.
Pakistan was compelled to launch the counter-terror strikes amid a direct, deadly ambush on its security forces and a sharp surge in cross-border terrorism spread over months. On June 9, 2026, banned TTP terrorists launched a midnight siege on a security post in the Hasan Khel area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The ensuing gunfight left six Pakistani Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel martyred and several others wounded. In the immediate aftermath, Pakistani intelligence tracked the perpetrators retreating across the border into safe havens in eastern Afghanistan. Counterterror strike was not an isolated retaliation but a response to a series of coordinated cross-border terrorist attacks launched from Afghanistan targeting law enforcement and military installations in Pakistan. On 2nd June, a vehicle-borne suicide attack targeted a military post in North Waziristan, whereas on May 9, a direct terrorist assault overran a police station in Bannu.
By failing to police its own territory, the Taliban regime bears the ultimate responsibility for any fallout resulting from the criminal acts of global terrorists.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul, conflict monitoring groups report that terrorist attacks within Pakistan have multiplied manifold. Multiple international bodies and regional security groups have explicitly validated Pakistan’s concerns regarding the growing presence of cross-border terrorist organisations in Afghanistan. The factual basis of Islamabad’s security warnings-that the Afghan Taliban are involved in providing sanctuary and operational freedom to anti-Pakistan terrorist groups like the TTP and BLA-is widely endorsed globally.
The UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team has published assessments that closely align with Pakistan’s intelligence claims. UN reports confirm that the banned TTP enjoys significantly increased operational freedom, logistical support, and safe havens under the de facto Afghan authorities. UN monitoring also documented that the Afghan Taliban’s primary intelligence agency facilitated dedicated guest houses in Kabul, issued weapons permits and immunity-from-arrest passes specifically to senior TTP figures. The CSTO (a regional security alliance comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) has issued explicit warnings in support of the regional alarm raised by Pakistan.
The CSTO formally declared that the activities of international terrorist groups inside Afghanistan are steadily increasing. The alliance aligned with Pakistan’s position by warning that the unchecked growth of these terrorist networks poses a severe threat that extends far beyond Afghanistan’s borders. The US government has historically and recently acknowledged the real threat Pakistan faces from Afghanistan-based terrorist networks. The US government publicly recognized Pakistan’s counterterrorism utility and vital role when Pakistani operations successfully apprehended the critical mastermind behind the deadly 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul. Washington continues to formally designate the TTP as a global terrorist organization, echoing Pakistan’s view that the group uses Afghan territory to destabilize regional democratic states. Independent global think tanks, such as the International Crisis Group (ICG), have validated the correlation between the Taliban’s rise to power and Pakistan’s growing security challenges related to cross-border terrorism. Their reports explicitly note that the self-style violent ideology of killing hundreds of Pakistani law enforcement personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is primarily driven by terrorist groups(TTP) operating out of safe bases inside Afghan territory. Ironically, Afghan Taliban are trying to downplay the cross-border terrorism factor with civilian casualty rhetoric. Pakistan officially rejected the Afghan Taliban’s civilian casualty claims by categorizing them as “continuous propaganda” engineered to shield terrorists. Pakistani state officials and information organs immediately dismissed the numbers put out by Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid. Islamabad maintained that the Taliban regime routinely invents or inflates civilian casualties to deflect from the fact that international terrorists are operating freely within their borders.
Pakistan firmly argues that the cross-border strikes are always “intelligence-driven” and executed only after multiple layers of tracking confirming the presence of active TTP personnel. Military spokespersons asserted that strikes on night 9/10 June strictly targeted four isolated tactical facilities (training camps, caches, and hideouts) specifically designed to avoid neighboring non-combatant populations. Islamabad has been persistently arguing that if the Taliban honored international obligations and prevented the TTP from using Afghan soil to strike Pakistani soldiers, cross-border operations would not be necessary in the first place. By failing to police its own territory, the Taliban regime bears the ultimate responsibility for any fallout resulting from the criminal acts of global terrorists.
The writer is a student.