Why Pakistan’s Afghan air strikes aren’t stopping armed attacks
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- Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed the June 27 attack on a Sindh Rangers compound in Karachi's Gulistan-i-Jauhar neighbourhood that killed three paramilitary personnel; Pakistani security sources identified the arrested attacker as Usman Ali, an Afghan national from Jalalabad in Nangarhar province.
- Pakistan struck targets in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces overnight and summoned Kabul's charge d'affaires, with Information Minister Attaullah Tarar claiming 25 fighters killed; a separate Bajaur ground operation killed several JuA members including a senior commander.
- Attacks in Pakistan rose 34 percent in 2025 with 699 incidents recorded, killing at least 1,034 people and wounding 1,366, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies — over 95 percent of them concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
- Pakistan has run Operation Ghazab Lil Haq since February, deported nearly one million Afghan nationals since September 2023, and held multiple rounds of ceasefire talks including negotiations in Urumqi in early April — none producing a lasting settlement.
- The UN recorded at least 372 Afghan civilian deaths and 397 injuries from Pakistani strikes in the first three months of 2026 alone, including a March missile strike on a drug rehabilitation facility in Kabul.
- Ibraheem Bahiss of the International Crisis Group called Pakistan's posture "maximum pressure built on an unproven premise" and said linking every major attack to Afghanistan appeared "more politically driven than evidence-based."
- Ihsanullah Tipu Maseed, an expert on non-state armed groups, said Pakistan's strikes are "largely reactive" and "simply to be seen doing something," reflecting an overreliance on force over a coherent counterterrorism strategy.
Why it matters: Pakistan's cycle of airstrikes, deportations, and failed talks is not just failing — it is reversing: independent UN figures document 372 Afghan civilian deaths from Pakistani strikes in just the first quarter of 2026, and multiple analysts say that toll is handing the Afghan Taliban a domestic narrative win that strengthens the very regime Pakistan accuses of sheltering its attackers.
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