After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the takeover of the Afghan Taliban over Kabul marked a surge in violence in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, southern Balochistan , and especially in the Ex-Fata region. The reason for increased violence is Afghanistan soil and Afghan Taliban regime providing safe haven to the proscribed terrorist organization Tehreek Taliban Pakistan TTP for cross-border terrorism and attacks.

“Peace in Afghanistan has become a nightmare for Pakistan.” – Asif Durrani

Pakistan has suffered from terrorism from many years and country’s security forces have battled to deal with it. The Taliban leadership also appears to have granted the TTP’s top leadership de facto political asylum and freedom of movement within the country, from which the group directs its ruthless violent campaign in Pakistan.

Pakistan launched its first-ever reprisal operation against the TTP which was named after Operation Rah-e-Haq in 2007 and subsequently five other operations including Operation Rah-e-Haq II, Operation Sherdil, operation Rah-e-Haq III, and finally the crucial Operation Radd-ul-fassad respectively. This Operation somehow reduced curbed  the hike of terrorism that had reached its peak after paying the cost of 70 thousand soldiers and civilian lives and a 67 Billion Dollars deficit to Pakistan’s economy .

Nevertheless, after US withdrawal in 2021, the Afghan Taliban’s control of Afghanistan created a security vacuum in the region and the terrorist’s organizations such as TTP, Islamic state of khorasan province ISKP and Al-Qaeda are believed to have exploited the situation to conduct strikes against Pakistan and the West especially the United States of America.

The troika of these alliance could pose a security threat beyond the region. Recently, the UN reported that Al-Qaeda has set up 8 new training camps in Kunar province of Afghanistan to train militant for suicide bombing and supporting TTP operation against Pakistan under the aegis of the Afghan Taliban government that has increasingly facilitating the militant to launch and mount the cross-border attacks.

TTP carried out 713 attacks in 2024 alone, killing 1,955 people.

Besides the logistic support, the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda are providing assistance to TTP in cross-border attacks while some Afghan Taliban have joined the TTP, believing that they had religious affiliation to join them in jihad. Furthermore, TTP members and their families receive regular aid package from the Afghan Taliban and their commander in chief Noor-ul-Wali Mehsud receive $50500 monthly from the de facto Afghan Taliban authorities.

Firstly, the Afghan Taliban have deep-rooted sympathy with TTP, owing to their tribal and personal connection and notably their ideological alignment. When the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul they released skillful and experienced fighters of TTP from the Kabul prisons who had long experience in wars and making strategies for carrying attacks. Both factions are ethnic Pashtun adhering to the Deobandi school of thought.

TTP remains a counterpart of the Afghan Taliban in different wars and the Afghan Taliban owes great debt to TTP. Both groups’ objectives are to enforce shariah in their respective region which is solely based on the interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah and are committed to implementing the Islamic governance system to accomplish peace and order through jihad.

Meanwhile, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan left around $7 billion worth of weapons, including firearms, communications gear, and armored vehicles. Subsequently, the fall of the Western-backed government in a chaotic time allowed the Afghan Taliban and their ally TTP to get a hand on the technological equipment that vast their war chest. These weapons have added to the fatal capabilities of TTP which are waging war against Pakistan state.

Recently, UN reports revealed that there are 6000 to 65000 TTP fighters present in Afghanistan and warned Pakistan for the unforeseen circumstance because these fighters are roaming freely and have the capacity to carry out attacks with the support of the Afghan Taliban.

According to South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), in 2020, TTP orchestrated 193 attacks targeted 169 civilians and 178 military personnel caused 506 casualties. However, when their sympathizer Afghan Taliban seized power over Kabul in 2021, the attack reached a new record in 2024 with 713 numbers of attacks of which 565 were civilian and 649 military personals and overall 1955 causalities. These are staggering numbers for Pakistan. Pakistan Institute of Political Studies (PIPS) revealed that TTP has launched 88% of terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistan warned the Afghan Taliban to make sure their soil would not be used by any terrorist outfits for cross-border. Afghan Taliban are not fulfilling the commitment and obligation they abided in the Doha agreement. Afghan Taliban lacks the political will and capacity to go against TTP.

The interior federal minister of Pakistan, Khawaja Asif spoke to Voice of America in an interview that if Kabul’s rulers didn’t curb the anti-Pakistan activities by TTP then Islamabad would carry out strikes in neighboring countries to target the terrorist sanctuaries on Afghan soil. The Taliban leadership’s backing for the TTP’s anti-Pakistan insurgency has resulted in a significant upsurge in violence in Pakistan, with 5155 Pakistani fatalities since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021. Pakistan blames the Afghan government for protecting anti-Pakistan militants, which has led to an increase in terrorism.

Asif Durrani, the Pakistani Special Envoy to Afghanistan, stated that “peace in Afghanistan has become a nightmare for Pakistan.” The timing at which these statements were made was crucial because Pakistan had taken a decision to repatriate 1.7 million Afghan refugees who had long been settled in Pakistan, paving the way for the surge of TTP attack. Upon Islamabad’s concern, the Afghan Taliban stated that TTP’s growing power in Pakistan is not an apprehension for them, since they believe that it is more of Pakistan’s internal issue. Despite their dissatisfaction with the refugee issue, they view Pakistan’s choice to return migrants as un-Islamic.

Pakistan government and TTP have held multiple rounds of talk which were brokered by the Afghan Taliban. The contemporary mediation by Afghan Taliban between Pakistan and TTP on 2 June 2022 for cease-fire was signed and continued for one month which was later revoked on the pretext that the Pakistan government did not make any effort to make the negotiation successful and called for a nationwide attack in Pakistan.

Afghan Taliban provides $50,500 monthly to TTP chief Noor-ul-Wali Mehsud.

Islamabad believed that the situation would soften after the Taliban took over but it went against their expectation and became more violent and gained capabilities through the aspiration of the Afghan Taliban to take over Kabul. This has realigned many groups into an alliance. The extremist organizations have had a major recovery since the Afghan Taliban and United States reached an agreement in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020. Soon after this historic pact, several terrorist organizations, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Jamat-ul-Ahrar, and others reunited with the TTP, which was disconnected in 2014.

Moreover, the red flag for Pakistan is the alliance between the Baloch Liberation Army Majeed Brigade group and TTP murdered nearly 50 security officers and civilians in a single night, particularly those emanating from Punjab. This attack expresses the expansion of TTP presence to Southern Balochistan. TTP also wants to make hindrance in the way of CPEC and recent attacks and presence in Chitral show their ill intent causing impediments in geo-strategic location which shares a border not only with Afghanistan but with Tajikistan and China through the Wakhan Corridor. Because of this sensitivity, there is a growing presence of Pakistan security forces in the region. But the tough terrain makes it harder to completely stop the infiltration. The latest cross-border attacks are a grim reminder of the growing TTP threat to National security.

In the last few months, Pakistan’s Foreign Office FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch rejected an offer made by Taliban Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, who had suggested in a recent interview that the Taliban Administration could facilitate negotiation between Pakistan and the TTP, claiming that it would be an insult to the thousands of people who had been victims of the group’s violence in Pakistan.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s vulnerable and struggling economy is unable to sustain the financial support for the Afghan Taliban, and it is likewise unwilling to recognize the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. At the same time, Pakistan does not want to reduce its strategic depth in Afghanistan because it is concerned that India might fill the gap and jeopardizing Pakistani security.

Thus, in the framework of the aforementioned results, Pakistan has experienced all the diplomatic and political approaches to balance the relation with the De facto Afghan authorities but the TTP and Afghan Taliban factors pushed the Pakistan to a crossroads where Pakistan neither seeks antagonistic ties with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan nor does it wish to accept the TTP’s unlawful demands. However, as far as Pakistan national security and sovereignty is concerned, the country has to deal with such element with Kinetic measure in order to secure it with exceptional means of militarily might.

Islamabad may potentially use cross-border military operations to apply pressure on the TTP, particularly if talks fail. This might include clandestine assassination attempts, as well as the deployment of aerial surveillance and unmanned targeting capabilities, which Pakistan has been building over the previous several years.

The Pakistani government needs to opt for a democratic and diplomatic approach to seek support from the local people against the TTP, notably by reaching an agreement and addressing the trust deficit between the government and the citizens. Furthermore, to acquire local support, the state must undertake certain advancements in education, health, energy, and jobs in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Implementing the steps recommended in the results can reduce the risks presented by TTP and other radical Islamist organizations and constrain their influence inside the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Furthermore, Pakistan needs to reassess and strict its counter-terrorism policy to combat any terrorist outfits that dare to challenge the state’s writ and make the strategy of striking the already existing terrorists.

Since the Taliban takeover, the surge in terrorism and cross-border attacks by TTP may further intensify the chances of straining Pak-Afghanistan relations in the future which will not only supplement the political, social, and economic instability of both Afghanistan and Pakistan but to the whole of south Asia and Central Asia. The Afghan Taliban must put restrictions on the freedom of the TTP movement and avoid providing sanctuaries.

Islamabad has warned of cross-border strikes if Kabul does not curb TTP’s actions.

For bilateral co-existence, they should fulfill the obligation of the Doha agreement in which they guaranteed the prevention of every international terrorist organization from using the Afghanistan land take action against the hideouts of TTP, and refrain from trivializing the issue and shifting of responsibilities from own shoulders by insisting that TTP is Islamabad domestic problem. They should give heed to Pakistan’s frequent complaints of TTP and take it seriously because Pakistan has the capacity to take cross-border action in case they fail to address the issue originating from Afghanistan.

Pakistan should exert international community pressure on the Afghan Taliban by utilizing enhanced diplomatic channels and aware them of the breaching of the Doha agreement by the Afghan Taliban. To effectively deal with the current terrorism layer Pakistan must reexamine and strengthen the counter-terrorism measures and ask for the international community to help them in financial and technological aspects in fight the terrorism that is the issue of the entire world.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent the views, beliefs, or policies of the Stratheia.