Pakistan’s Escalating Response to Cross-Border Terrorism

Tensions are on the rise between Pakistan and Afghanistan once again as both countries have traded fire as well as accusations over the past few days. The current flare-up is a direct consequence of a terrorist attack on a mosque in the north-western Pakistani town of Kohat on September 18, in which at least 31 people, including 16 police personnel, were killed and over 100 injured. 

After neutralizing the attackers after an hours-long gun battle, Pakistan launched retaliatory airstrikes against the alleged positions of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur-led Ittehad ul Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), which had claimed responsibility for the attack, and its ideological ally, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Paktika and Kunar provinces of Afghanistan on September 21. Pakistan claimed to have killed 28 terrorists in those strikes. 

Instead of engaging Pakistan’s border posts with machine guns and mortars like in most previous instances, the Taliban government of Afghanistan launched drones against Pakistan from its territory in the early hours of September 23. Eight of the drones were downed by Pakistan’s air defenses, according to Pakistani authorities. 

The Afghan drone incursions did not cause any casualties or damage to civilian or military infrastructure in Pakistan; the spokesperson for the Pakistani president dismissed them as unfrightening “flying toys.” Even so, Islamabad conducted fresh air raids in Afghanistan, targeting 10 different locations in the early hours of September 24. Pakistan’s information minister confirmed that the second round of strikes was indeed a response to the Afghan drone incursions.

Quite ironically, the Kohat terrorist attack came a day after Turkiye’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, arrived in Islamabad following his trip to Afghanistan. Kalin was continuing Turkiye’s effort to mediate a long-term peace between the two countries. Kabul had already expressed its lack of enthusiasm toward the Turkish mediation when the Taliban’s Supreme Leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhunzada refused to see Kalin in Kandahar, reportedly calling him “Westernized.” Then Islamabad’s identification of one of the suicide bombers as an Afghan national and the subsequent events sealed the fate of the ongoing peace efforts by Turkiye and Qatar.

While Pakistani and Afghan security forces continue to trade fire across the border and accusations in the media, the question on many a mind right now is whether any meaningful mediation between the two countries is possible any time soon. The short answer seems to be “no.” Here is the longer explanation for it.

Looking at Pakistan’s kinetic responses to terrorist attacks that its officials associated with terrorist safe havens across the border in Afghanistan, one can discern a break from the past since October last year. Even though Islamabad has been alleging an Afghan connection to earlier terrorist attacks as well, its kinetic responses were sparse and cautious. 

Pakistan’s first reported use of force inside Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 occurred in April 2022, following a terrorist attack in the North Waziristan district bordering Afghanistan. At the time, Pakistan’s Foreign Office did not even acknowledge the airstrikes, even though the Taliban government of Afghanistan complained to the United Nations Security Council about them and initiated limited cross-border retaliatory fire against Pakistani border posts. 

Two years later, in March 2024, Pakistan once again responded with airstrikes inside Afghanistan after a terrorist attack in North Waziristan. This time, Pakistan’s Foreign Office was quick to acknowledge the attack but its spokesperson hastened to add that Islamabad “respect[ed] the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan and look[ed] forward to working together” with Afghanistan. In a subsequent press briefing, the Foreign Office even clarified that its actions were not against the government or the people of Afghanistan. 

The response of the Taliban government of Afghanistan was also measured. Even though it claimed that it had conducted cross-border strikes against Pakistani posts, which was corroborated by the local population, the damage to personnel and infrastructure was limited. Like in April 2022, the crisis de-escalated quickly.

In December 2024 Pakistan conducted another round of airstrikes inside Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack. Even though the airstrikes came at a time when Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq was on his first visit to Kabul after resuming his responsibilities in the position, the aftermath followed a somewhat similar pattern to April 2022 and March 2024.

In October 2025, however, things changed significantly. Pakistan not only conducted an airstrike in the heart of Kabul targeting the head of the TTP, but responded to Afghanistan’s cross-border retaliatory fire on Pakistani border posts with much more intensity than the previous instances. 

This led to a quick escalation of the conflict, forcing Qatar and Turkiye to make frantic efforts toward a ceasefire as well as a longer-term rapprochement. While the ceasefire held for a time, negotiations on the signing of a longer-term peace deal between Afghanistan and Pakistan remained unsuccessful, resulting in a tense diplomatic impasse that has persisted ever since. 

Things got even worse in February 2026, when Pakistan initiated a long-term military operation aimed at neutralizing terrorists inside Afghan territory through the sustained use of air power.

Thus October 2025 marked a break from the past and February 2026 made the use of coercive power a norm. The reason for the new normal was the failure of months of bilateral and trilateral diplomacy starting in March 2025, when Sadiq travelled to Kabul again for talks after the December 2024 debacle. His visit paved the way for a visit of Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar to Kabul in April. Pakistan’s Foreign Office explicitly described Dar’s visit as part of its effort to develop “good, friendly, neighborly relations” with Afghanistan. 

From May through August, Islamabad considerably intensified this diplomatic track with the involvement of China. In May, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan held a trilateral foreign minister meeting in Beijing, where the three sides agreed to strengthen communication, economic cooperation, regional connectivity, and security cooperation. China and Pakistan also supported the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan. 

This was the time when Pakistan and Afghanistan also agreed to upgrade diplomatic representation from chargé d’affaires to the ambassadorial level. Dar subsequently described the diplomatic interactions as laying the foundations for a “qualitative change” in Pakistan’s bilateral relations with Afghanistan. 

On July 7, 2025, the two foreign ministries institutionalized another channel through an additional-secretary-level mechanism covering trade, transit, security, connectivity, and Afghan nationals. Dar made two back-to-back visits to Kabul in July and August to sign the framework agreement for a joint feasibility study of the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway and the sixth Pakistan-China-Afghanistan trilateral, respectively. Pakistan even provided Afghanistan with humanitarian assistance after the September 2025 earthquake. 

Despite all this intense positive diplomacy, however, terrorist attacks inside Pakistan with purported links to Afghanistan continued. That is what has led Islamabad to treat coercion – not diplomacy with Afghanistan – as the primary option of choice since October 2025, even if the results of that change are highly debatable. As the escalation hurts populations on both sides of the border, there seems to be a perception among Pakistani policy circles that coercion is more likely to persuade the Afghan Taliban to quit supporting the TTP and its affiliated groups than diplomacy. And even if not, perhaps, at least Pakistan would be getting even with the Taliban.