In the past 4 years, since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban have used its proxies – the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) – to carry out asymmetric warfare inside of Pakistan.
Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia have all tried to use diplomatic means to get the Taliban to end their support of terror groups to no avail. Qatar, the terror world’s banker and arms dealer, also attempted to half-heartedly encourage the Taliban to stop by providing funding to the Taliban
While the Taliban has learned to parrot a line – there are no terrorists on Afghan soil – this week, they added a new refrain to the song – we inherited the TTP because Pakistan refused to take them back after the kinetic operation in 2014-15.
Over the past week, Pakistan launched a sustained bombing campaign inside Afghanistan – targeting militant strongholds, weapons depots, and cross-border infiltration routes that have fueled years of terror attacks.
These strikes, which included precision drone and air assaults in Kabul, eastern and western provinces, represent Pakistan’s most forceful counterterror operation in recent history. The objective: dismantle the terror infrastructure that Afghanistan has allowed to flourish since the Taliban takeover. Pakistan’s onslaught spread from the north, near Chitral, where Sanaullah Ghafari, the leader of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), is holed up in a Haqqani Network safe house, to the south, along the core infiltration routes used by the Baluchistan Liberation Army.
Reporting confirms that Pakistan closed major crossings, including Torkham and Chaman, after fierce firefights erupted between border units. Dozens were killed as both sides exchanged artillery and heavy machine gun fire. Trade was halted and troops placed on high alert.
Additionally, as a significant spiritual slap in the face, the Islamic Army, known as Imam Mehdi’s Army, has been re-branded by all Pakistani analysts and commentators as Imam Modi’s Army, pointing out the direct ties to India’s Prime Minister Narendar Modi and his government. This represents a significant blow to the efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani, Hamza bin Laden and Sayf al-Adel to build something that represented what Osama bin Laden dreamed. Now, it has been turned into an arm of the Indian state.
- Pakistan’s Air Strikes Redefine the War on Terror
- Operation Khyber Storm
- A Strategic Shift in the Terror Ecosystem
- Choked Corridors, New Routes
- The Propaganda War
- What Comes Next
The panel included former deployed US military and intelligence operatives from Afghanistan and Iraq, including:
- Khalid Muhammad – Executive Director CommandEleven, intelligence operator and geopolitical analyst
- S2, retired Marine, currently working private intelligence projects
