Why Pakistan’s Afghan air strikes aren’t stopping armed attacks
Analysts warn military pressure alone cannot contain a threat from Afghanistan-based armed groups that has reached Pakistan’s cities. Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan struck targets of
Analysts warn military pressure alone cannot contain a threat from Afghanistan-based armed groups that has reached Pakistan’s cities. Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan struck targets of what it claimed were hideouts of an armed group in three Afghan provinces overnight and summoned Kabul’s envoy on Monday morning, after an assault on a Sindh Rangers base in Karachi over the weekend killed three paramilitary personnel and wounded four others. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced on X that security forces had conducted strikes in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces, claiming 25 fighters were killed. A separate ground operation in Bajaur in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday night killed several members of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), including a senior commander, Tarar said, adding that large quantities of weapons and ammunition were also destroyed. The JuA, which claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack, is a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban (Pakistan Taliban, or TTP), a group behind many of the deadliest bombings and killings that Pakistan has suffered in recent years. On Monday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Tahir Andrabi confirmed that Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires — the country’s top diplomat in Pakistan — issued a demarche, a formal diplomatic protest. Pakistan’s ambassador in Kabul delivered a separate demarche to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs the same day. “Afghan soil and Afghan nationals continue to be used to orchestrate terrorist attacks inside Pakistan,” Andrabi said. The Afghan Taliban — which is distinct from the TTP and which rules in Kabul — has, however, insisted that the Pakistani strikes led to civilian casualties. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted images of wounded children and accused Pakistan of striking residential areas, claiming dozens of civilians had been killed. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified, yet the Karachi attack, the Pakistani strikes on Afghan soil, and the war of narratives fit a pattern that has now increasingly become a routine descriptor of the Islamabad-Kabul relationship. Pakistan has repeatedly used a combination of military strikes, deportation and diplomacy to try to crush the armed groups it accuses of attacking its territory. But the bombings and killings inside Pakistan continue — prompting a sharpening chorus from sections of analysts that it is time for Islamabad to reevaluate its strategy.
The Karachi assault Pakistan’s strikes and diplomatic protest came in response to the June 27 assault on a Sindh Rangers compound in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar neighbourhood. The JuA claimed responsibility. Three Rangers personnel were killed in the attack, while three attackers died in return fire. One attacker was captured alive. Pakistani security sources identified the arrested man as Usman Ali, an Afghan national from Jalalabad in Nangarhar province. According to investigators, he told authorities the team of attackers had entered Pakistan seven days before the assault. Karachi had not witnessed an attack of this scale since February 2023, when TTP fighters stormed the Karachi Police Office on Shahrah-e-Faisal, killing four people. According to the United Nations Security Council, the JuA is based in Nangarhar, the Afghan province whose capital is Jalalabad, the same city Pakistani authorities say the arrested attacker came from. A faction seeking relevance The JuA’s relationship with TTP has long been turbulent. The TTP, formed in 2007, has waged a sustained armed campaign against the Pakistani state and remains the dominant militant umbrella network, which Islamabad says largely operates from Afghan territory. The JuA split from the group in 2014, rejoined in 2020 and, by early 2025, had drifted into semi-independence again. When TTP announced new leadership appointments in February 2025, JuA received no significant positions, although no formal split was declared. Ihsanullah Tipu Maseed, an expert on non-state armed groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, said the Karachi attack reflected JuA’s need to demonstrate continued relevance. “Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has used this attack to send a message that they still possess the capability to carry out large-scale attacks inside Pakistan,” he told Al Jazeera. “There is always an internal competition among militant organisations to prove their capability to supporters and potential recruits. They want to demonstrate they can deploy multiple attackers to target key strategic security installations, independently of the TTP.” Historically, JuA has been among the most hardline factions within the TTP network. The group claimed responsibility for the 2016 Easter bombing at Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, which killed more than 70 people. The November 2025 suicide bombing at Islamabad’s district court complex, which killed 12 people, was also attributed to the group.
The BriefWire