Pakistan strikes Kandahar — Afghanistan confirms hits
🔸On the night of September 24, Pakistan launched new airstrikes on Afghanistan, hitting Kandahar for the first time in this escalation. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said ten facilities allegedly used to launch drones toward Pakistan were targeted, calling the operation "precise and proportionate."
🔸Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the strikes but said those bombs fell in unpopulated areas with no casualties. The Afghan side reported strikes also hit Paktia and Khost, killing at least four, and promised an "appropriate response."
🔸The escalation began on September 18 with a terrorist attack in Kohat. A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck into the gate of a mosque inside a police lines compound during Friday prayers. Fifty people were killed, including 27 police officers, with over 100 wounded. After the blast, armed militants entered the compound using the mosque area as an entry point. The firefight lasted about 20 hours and the attack was claimed by a group linked to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
🔸Pakistan blamed Kabul for harboring TTP militants. On September 21, it struck Kunar and Paktika, claiming 28 militants killed. Kabul reported three civilians dead. On September 22, border clashes erupted, while on the 23rd, Pakistan said it downed eight drones. On the 24th, strikes reached Kandahar.
🚨𝗣𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡-𝗔𝗙𝗚𝗛𝗔𝗡 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗕𝗔𝗡 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗦 𝟯.𝟬 🇵🇰⚔️🇦🇫
Afghan Taliban operations follow the exact same cycle every single time initiate unprovoked border firing, attempt a physical raid, take heavy casualties, retreat while abandoning their dead & then turn to social media to push fabricated claims of victory. That pattern played out again today in the Chaman Sector. After the illegal Afghan regime opened indiscriminate fire & tried to push across 3 border points, Pakistani forces responded with heavy counter fire decisively repulsing every physical attempt.
Field Losses Confirmed:
- 22 TTA killed, many injured & the rest ran away
- 3 Outposts Leveled: Sartashan Thana, Pasta Thana & Mateen Thana
- 1x APC destroyed by direct fire
- 150+ killed
میں کوہاٹ کا ہندکو بولنے والا ہوں اج سے 55 سال پہلے جب میں 7 سال کا تھا تو کوہاٹ کے پبلک اسکول میں میرے ساتھ بیٹھے لڑکے [فاروق} نے کہا کہ تم تو باہر سے اےَ ہو، واپس پنجاب جاو۔
میں لاہور، پنجاب میں 44 سال سے رہ رہا ہوں، مجھے کبھی کسی پنجابی نے یہ نہیں کہا واپس خیبرپختونخواہ جاو۔ میرے سب سے لنگوٹیے دوست پکے لاہوری ہیں۔
Chaman sector, neutralizing at least 20 TTA elements, penalizing the Sartashan, Pasta, and Mateen outposts, and successfully destroying one vehicle with direct 106 mm fire as the hunt continues.
Chaman Sector Update 🚨
📍On 24 September 2026, alert security forces swiftly repulsed an unprovoked indiscriminate firing and subsequent physical raid attempt by the illegal Afghan regime on the Largo (40-45 TTA) and Amanto (30-35 TTA) posts along the Pak-Afghan border in the
Pakistan's forces neutralised the drones and hit back. On September 24, Pakistan struck 10 sites used to launch the drones. Pakistan's response was calibrated and proportionate; limited to identified military objectives.
We have seen this pattern before.
In October 2025, 11 soldiers, including a Lt Col and a Major, were martyred in an operation against TTP militants in Orakzai. Militants then attacked the Police Training School in D.I. Khan, martyring seven policemen. Then came a full-blown attack across the border. Pakistan lost 23 soldiers and killed more than 200 Taliban and affiliated fighters.
Even recent diplomatic outreach met the same disdain. According to a Kandahar source, Taliban ministers told Türkiye’s intelligence chief that issues could only be discussed in Kandahar. Invited there, the Taliban chief reportedly refused at the last minute, calling them “Western.” The meeting was shifted to an undiplomatic setting in Mullah Omar Mosque with the Kandahar governor. The Turkish chief later told Pakistan that expecting “sensible behaviour” from the Taliban means “fooling ourselves.”
Now decide for yourself.
Is Pakistan the aggressor, or a state defending its people from cross-border terrorism?
Pakistan–Afghanistan border clashes are neither sudden nor unjustified.
When the Taliban took Kabul in 2021, the entire world vacated its embassies. Pakistan, which had hosted millions of Afghans for over four decades, kept its mission open and acted as a lifeline for evacuees during the chaotic withdrawal.
At the post-withdrawal UN-led conferences on Afghanistan, Pakistan was the loudest voice for unfreezing Afghanistan's $9 billion in assets. It even used regional forums like ECO to lobby for the same.
Pakistan hoped for peace and stability. Instead, the Taliban regime turned Afghanistan into a safe haven for the TTP.
Yet, despite repeated betrayals, Pakistan tried every peaceful route: religious, tribal, and official.
In July 2022, an 8-member ulema delegation led by Mufti Taqi Usmani went to Kabul to convince the Taliban and TTP to stop attacks. A few days later, a 17-member tribal jirga carried the same message.
On February 22, 2023, a high-level delegation led by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and DG ISI Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum visited Kabul to push for peace.
In July 2024, Interior Minister Naqvi led another delegation for security cooperation.
Pakistan's diplomacy was not empty words. Special Envoy Muhammad Sadiq worked to build trade ties, leading to the Early Harvest Programme (EHP), which cut tariffs on eight key agricultural items for the benefit of both sides.
Pakistan kept talking even under fire. After the deadliest clashes in years in October 2025, it accepted a Qatar-mediated ceasefire and follow-up talks in Doha and Istanbul, which failed to produce a lasting agreement. In February 2026, Saudi mediation secured the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan. Even after the war began, Pakistan sat down at China-mediated talks in Ürümqi in April. Its demands were minimal and fair: designate the TTP a terrorist organisation, dismantle its infrastructure, and provide verifiable proof. Even that was too much for the Taliban regime.
But what did Pakistan get in return?
According to Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) data:
• 2021: 89 attacks
• 2022: 262 attacks
• 2023: 306 attacks
• 2024: 521 attacks
• 2025: 699 attacks, killing at least 1,034 people
• 2026 (Jan–Aug): 3,150 deaths (including about 488 security personnel)
The worst betrayal came during Pakistan's 4-day war with India in May 2025. Afghanistan sent a 40-member TTP tashkeel, including the son of a Taliban official, to attack from the western front, stabbing Pakistan in the back while it was fighting its eastern enemy.
2026 has been the deadliest year for Pakistani security forces. By mid-year alone, 3,844 total fatalities, with 1,027+ security forces martyred.
In July 2026 alone, 112 security personnel were martyred, the highest monthly toll since January 2023. That month also saw eight suicide attacks; the most in a single month in a decade. Behind every number is a soldier, a policeman, a family.
What triggered Pakistan's latest strikes? Just one week is enough to understand.
A suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in Kohat. Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, and a 20-hour battle left at least 21 dead, mostly police officers, wounding over 100.
Days later, clashes in Hangu killed six Pakistani security personnel. The attackers were the TTP and its allied groups operating from Afghan soil. At the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told the world that more than two dozen anti-Pakistan militant groups are present in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's patience had run out.
On September 21, Pakistan struck three militant targets in Afghanistan killing 28 terrorists. The strikes were intelligence-based, targeted, and aimed only at the terrorists being hosted in Afghanistan.
How did the Taliban regime respond?
Not by acting against the terrorists, but by escalating. Taliban forces launched eight drones toward Kohat and Torkham and shelled Pakistani border posts.
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Update from Pak Afghan Border 🚨🚨
📍Heavy retaliation in the Chaman sector left multiple Afghan Taliban posts destroyed and ablaze, resulting in 14 confirmed casualties and several more estimated.
🚨𝗣𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡-𝗔𝗙𝗚𝗛𝗔𝗡 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗕𝗔𝗡 𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗘𝗦 🇵🇰⚔️🇦🇫
In response to unprovoked attacks by the Afghan Taliban Pakistani forces launched heavy retaliatory fire using mortars & rocket launchers along the Chaman sector.
- 7 Afghan Taliban posts destroyed
- 17+ Taliban personnel killed
- Dozens injured as hostile positions are cleared
🚨🚨🚨 Pakistan army used Sarfarosh kamakaze drones to obilerate Ammunition storage Igloos of the T.T.A forces of Afghanistan in Khost , Paktika and Kandahar. A successful operation by the Pakistan army.
🚨 Heavy exchange of fire between FC Balochistan and Afghan Taliban forces in Chaman sector of Balochistan. Taliban infiltration attempt has been failed.