The Pulse | Security | South Asia

Despite Chinese Mediation Efforts, Taliban-Pakistan Conflict Continues With New Strikes

The rupture between Afghanistan’s Taliban and their erstwhile allies in Pakistan continues to cause suffering on both sides of the border.

Since the Taliban’s 2021 return to power, Pakistan has conducted several strikes inside Afghanistan, claiming to have targeted Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror bases. Growing mistrust and tensions over the TTP boiled over into outright conflict in October 2025, which earlier this year was termed an “open war” by Pakistani officials. Despite several mediation attempts by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and China, the tensions have not faded away.

Last Sunday, Pakistan conducted its latest strikes inside Afghanistan. 

According to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), at least 28 civilians were killed and 49 others, including women and children, were injured during these strikes. The Taliban said that at least 36 civilians were killed and over 160 were injured in the strikes, which hit civilian homes. The Taliban described the attack as “cowardly” and an “atrocity.” 

Pakistan, on the other hand, said that it had carried out a ground operation along the border and air strikes targeting militant hideouts in Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces. Islamabad claimed that 29 militants had been killed. Attaullah Tarar, Pakistan’s information minister said that it was an operation in response to “recent terrorist attacks against innocent people.”

The Taliban launched retaliatory strikes inside Pakistan, claiming to have carried out strikes along the Pakistani border, injuring several people inside Balochistan Province. After the Taliban strikes, Pakistan’s military said that it had shot down four rudimentary drones and issued a warning that any provocation “would receive a befitting response.”

Pakistan’s latest strike came a day after a bomb and gun attack on a Rangers facility in Sindh province’s capital city, Karachi. Pakistan’s military said in a statement that militants from the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the TTP, detonated an explosive at the entrance of the Rangers camp in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar neighborhood of Karachi before opening fire on the paramilitary troops. According to the Pakistani military, three paramilitary troops were killed and four were injured, while three militants were killed in the exchange of fire, and a fourth, an Afghan national, was captured. The Pakistani military’s statement further added that “Pakistan shall undertake retribution operations against the perpetrators of this attack.” The attack was one of the most significant in Karachi since a 2024 explosion targeting a Chinese convoy, in which two Chinese nationals were killed.

After the Urumqi talks, mediated by China during the first week of April, in which the two sides agreed not to escalate the situation further but did not necessarily make peace, there were hopes that the conflict would cool down.

However, the lull lasted just a few days, and on April 17, the Taliban-run Radio Television Afghanistan reported that Pakistani artillery strikes with at least 10 rockets had destroyed a health center in Barikot village of Nari district in Afghanistan’s province Kunar. There were no casualties reported.

A major blow to the tentative peace came 10 days later when the Taliban alleged that seven people were killed and 85 were wounded on April 27 in Pakistan strikes on a university in Kunar province. Pakistani officials dismissed reports in the Afghan media about the incident and said that the official Taliban statements about the strike were a “blatant lie.” These strikes were considered the first major........

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