The Israeli military will begin preparing for the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City, it said on Saturday, as health officials said it had killed at least 40 people including a baby in a tent and people seeking aid in its latest attacks.
The announcement came days after Israel said it intended to launch a new offensive to seize control of Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban centre, in a plan that raised international alarm. The Israeli offensive has already displaced most of the population, killed tens of thousands of civilians and created a famine.
Gaza residents would be provided with tents and other shelter equipment starting from Sunday ahead of relocating them from combat zones to the south of the enclave “to ensure their safety,” the Israeli military claimed on Saturday. It did not say when the mass displacement would begin.
Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it had declared as safe zones. On Saturday a baby girl and her parents were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a tent in al-Muwasi, previously designated a humanitarian zone by Israel, in southern Gaza, Nasser hospital officials and witnesses said.
“Two and a half months, what has she done?” her neighbour Fathi Shubeir asked. “They are civilians in an area designated safe.”
Israel’s military said it couldn’t comment on the strike without more details.
A Palestinian man carries the body of his 7-year-old nephew, Alaa Al-Toum, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday night, during his funeral at Shifa hospital in Gaza City Saturday. Photograph: Jehad Alshrafi/AP
Al-Muwasi is now one of the most heavily populated areas in Gaza after Israel pushed people into the desolate area. But prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week said Israel planned to widen its coming military offensive to include the area, along with Gaza City and “central camps” – an apparent reference to the built-up Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza.
According to the civil defence agency, at least 13 of the Palestinians killed on Saturday were shot by troops as they were waiting to collect food aid near distribution sites in the north and in the south.
There were also another 11 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Saturday, including at least one child. That brings malnutrition-related deaths due to the Israeli blockade on aid to 251.
In recent days, Gaza City residents have reported more frequent air strikes targeting residential areas especially in the east and south and including the Zeitun neighbourhood. Hamas said on Saturday the military was targeting the area with warplanes, artillery and drones.
Mahmoud Suhail al-Dabbeh, a 16-year-old child with cerebral palsy in Gaza City, Gaza, died of malnutrition due to Israel’s blockade on aid on Saturday. After funeral procedures at al-Shifa Hospital, his body was laid to rest. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said conditions in Zeitun were rapidly deteriorating with residents having little to no access to food and water amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
He said that about 50,000 people were estimated to be in that area of Gaza City, “the majority of whom are without food or water” and lacking “the basic necessities of life”.
Ghassan Kashko, 40, who is sheltering with his family at a school building in the neighbourhood, said: “We don’t know the taste of sleep.” He said air strikes and tank shelling were causing “explosions… that don’t stop”.
Israel was carrying out ethnic cleansing in Zeitun, Bassal said. The Israeli military says it abides by international law though rights groups, including in Israel, say it is committing genocide.
In its announcement on Saturday the military said shelter equipment would be transferred via the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza by the United Nations and other international relief organisations after being inspected by defence ministry personnel, the military said. Israeli inspections and bureaucracy have until now resulted in much aid being refused entry to the territory.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expressed concern over Israel’s plans to relocate people to southern Gaza saying it would only increase suffering.
But the UN body welcomed Israel’s recognition that shelter is a desperate need and that tents and other shelter equipment will be allowed again into Gaza. “The UN and its partners will seize the opportunity this opens,” the spokesperson said.
A Palestinian woman holds the body of a child killed in an Israeli attack on Musa Bin Nusayr School in Gaza City’s ed-Derec neighborhood on Friday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The UN warned on Thursday that thousands of families already enduring appalling humanitarian conditions could be pushed over the edge if the Gaza City plan moves ahead.
Palestinian and United Nations officials have said no place in the enclave is safe, including areas in southern Gaza where Israel has been ordering residents to move to.
The military declined to comment when asked whether the shelter equipment was intended for Gaza City’s population, estimated at around one million people presently, and whether the site to which they will be relocated in southern Gaza would be the area of Rafah, which borders Egypt.
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the plans for the new offensive were still being formulated.
The Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, an ally of Hamas, said that the military’s announcement “as part of its brutal attack to occupy Gaza City, is a blatant and brazen mockery of international conventions.”
Protests calling for a hostage release and an end to the war were expected throughout Israel on Sunday, with many businesses, municipalities and universities saying they will support employees striking for the day.
The families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for the “nationwide day of stoppage” on Sunday to express growing frustration over the war. They fear the coming offensive will further endanger the 50 hostages remaining in Gaza, just 20 of whom are thought to still be alive.
IF the Gaza genocide does not serve as a strong enough daily reminder of how bereft of principles Western politics is, images of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump beamed live from Alaska this weekend reinforced the point quite unequivocally.
President Trump makes no bones about how he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. In his no-holds barred quest for being acknowledged as a peacemaker, not only did he bring in from the cold the Russian leader who has been a pariah in the eyes of the West, since his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but also gifted his guest a great optics win.
From the arrival at an airbase near Anchorage where the two landed within minutes of each other and then alighted from their respective planes and walked on their respective red carpet strips to where they converged, it was a carefully choreographed move that seemed more designed by the guest than the host.
As Trump waited for Putin to walk the final few steps he brought his two hands together to applaud the Russian leader and then the two met and smiled before a handshake, patting each other in a gesture of warmth, even affection. It isn’t clear what the US TV networks were saying but the BBC seemed to struggle with the live broadcast.
Till he arrived in Alaska, Putin did not appear prepared to return any part of eastern Ukraine.
The BBC North America correspondent saw the presence of F-35 stealth warplanes on the tarmac as a force projection. A flypast by a B2 stealth bomber and four F-35s was also similarly described (with a mention of how the B2s released their bunker buster bombs against Iranian nuclear sites in June).
But to the unbiased observer, Putin appeared amused rather than being awed or fearful at the spectacle. In all likelihood, he saw it as a salute by the USAF just as the soldiers lined up either side of the red carpet to ‘present arms’ salute with their ceremonial rifles.
Such was the Russian leader’s confidence at being welcomed back into acceptance by reputedly the most powerful nation’s president that he set aside protocol and security considerations to ride in the Trump limousine while his own limousine, flown in from Russia earlier, followed.
Again, bizarrely, one of the people commenting on BBC TV said they weren’t sure if Putin spoke or understood English, while the Russian leader was visibly engaged in a continuous conversation with his host and later told the media he greeted Trump with a ‘Good afternoon, neighbour. Good to see you’ when he met him. In Alaska, only the Bering Strait separates the two.
As the motorcade was pulling away from the airport, Putin smiled and waved to the cameras. The significance of all this is clear from the fact that over the past three years, Putin, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has not been received by any Western country. And here the red carpet had been rolled out for him.
After three hours of talks, the two leaders faced the media but did not answer questions. Putin read from a prepared statement where, after talking about the US-Russia history with specific reference to Alaska, he seemed to flatter Trump, saying that he endorsed the latter’s view that the Ukraine war would not have happened if he had been the US president.
Putin said the meeting, and what was agreed in it, will mark the beginning of peace in Ukraine if what he called the ‘root causes’ were addressed. For his part, Trump spoke briefly and started by saying, “There no deal until there is a deal”. He described the meeting as productive where many points were agreed on but “a few” remain.
Before leaving the podium, he also said he would now call the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European leaders and Nato officials for consultations.
The discussions must have gone well with the late-night White House announcement that the Ukrainian leader is arriving in Washington on Monday and will be received by Trump for talks. The European leaders, too, reacted positively to whatever they were told.
A peace deal will hinge on how far Putin and Zelensky and the latter’s Western European allies are willing to compromise on their ‘no land for peace’ stance. Till he arrived in Alaska, Putin did not appear prepared to return any part of eastern Ukraine his forces have captured. He also wants recognition of his 2014 annexation of Crimea.
For now, the security guarantees for Ukraine that are being discussed exclude any eastward expansion of Nato into Ukraine. Putin will also be averse to Western boots on the ground. It was, inter alia, talk of Nato expansion plans that first spooked Russia because, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow saw Ukraine as a buffer between Western Europe-Nato and itself.
Trump’s word may not amount to much as has been demonstrated by his support to the Gaza ethnic cleansing by Israel in contrast to his earlier reservations, but in this European conflict, he has moved away a shade from his earlier stance that only Ukraine will have to give up land for peace and it will be Europe and not the US which will offer security guarantees to Kiev.
But for Putin to leave the summit meeting beaming tells one how many compromises he has been forced to agree to, including the amount of land he would swap for peace. For now, he has pushed back by several weeks the likelihood of sterner US sanctions and also charmed his way to having Trump listen to his point of view face to face.
Trump can give himself any prize he wants, like our leaders have done, but hundreds of millions around the world will find any accolade he gets legitimate only if he moves from the end to the war in Ukraine to peace in Gaza and gives up his support for the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of the Palestinians.
Students from Gurukul School of Art, carry a poster of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump on India outside their school. U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on India along with penalties for buying oil and military equipments from Russia.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
A scheduled visit by U.S. trade representatives to New Delhi later this month has been called off, according to Indian news broadcaster NDTV Profit.
The visit that was expected to take place between Aug. 25 and Aug. 29 will likely be rescheduled, NDTV reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The report comes at a time when trade relations between the two countries have soured with U.S. President Donald Trump imposing a 25% blanket tariff on Indian exports, and topping those with additional 25% in duties — expected to come into effect on Aug. 27 — as a “penalty” for India purchasing Russian crude.
Both sides are in contact with each other, but a new schedule for talks not been finalized, the report said.
Trump’s cumulative 50% tariff rate on India is among the highest on any of the U.S.’ trading partners, and has drawn a sharp response from New Delhi.
India has said it was being targeted unfairly, while calling out the EU and the U.S. on their continuing trade with Russia. “It is revealing that the very nations criticizing India are themselves indulging in trade with Russia. Unlike our case, such trade is not even a vital national compulsion [for them],” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement earlier this month.
India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the Office of the U.S Trade Representative did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comments.
The U.S. is India’s single largest export partner, with nearly 20% of its overall exports, or $86.51 billion worth of goods, shipped to the U.S. in fiscal year ended March 2025, according to the latest official data.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit India for the first time in three years to discuss the latest round of border talks, the Chinese foreign ministry has confirmed.
During the trip from August 18 to 20, the top Chinese diplomat will serve as the “special representative of the China-India boundary question” in the 24th round of border talks “at the invitation of the Indian side”, according to a Saturday statement from the ministry.
This series of negotiations aims to address long-standing border disputes, which have seen a temporary de-escalation following years of tension. Wang is expected to meet top Indian officials including National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.
The two last met in Beijing in December to review disengagement in eastern Ladakh along the disputed border, known as the Line of Actual Control, where an estimated 50,00060,000 troops remain deployed on each side.
“We stand ready to work with India to act on the important common understandings reached between leaders of our two countries, maintain the momentum of high-level exchanges, cement political mutual trust, enhance practical cooperation, properly handle differences, and promote the sustained, sound and steady development of China-India ties,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Thursday in response to speculation about a trip by Wang.
“China and India are both major developing countries and important members of the Global South,” he said. “A cooperative pas de deux of the dragon and the elephant as partners helping each other succeed is the right choice for both sides.”
Wang’s trip comes ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit from August 31 to September 1.
The easing of tensions between China and India has gathered pace while New Delhi’s relationship with Washington is strained by growing trade disputes.
China and India had already been working to improve relations following the deadly clash between their troops in the disputed Galwan Valley in June 2020.
Wang’s last visit to India was a brief working trip on March 25, 2022, just weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Backchannel talks since late last year have yielded more incremental progress. Both armies completed disengagement at multiple friction points along the Line of Actual Control, and New Delhi reopened visa slots for Chinese nationals earlier this year, while Beijing resumed access to Tibet for Indian pilgrims.
Both countries have also announced plans to resume direct flights.
Tens of thousands of Libyans voted in local elections on Saturday in areas controlled by the Tripoli government but opposition from a rival administration in the east prevented the polls going ahead elsewhere.
The elections were seen as a test of democracy in a nation still plagued by division and instability after years of unrest following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) praised organisers for the conduct of Saturday’s elections but criticised the eastern administration, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, for its “violation” of the rights of voters in areas under its control.
Polling took place in around 50 municipalities, including the capital.
“Voting today in Tripoli is crucial for me because it makes me feel useful,” said Sami el-Tajuri, a 62-year-old architect, adding that his three children are voting for the first time.
“It’s frustrating to see that I can have my say in who will represent me but so many other Libyans, especially in the east, cannot.”
Since Kadhafi’s overthrow, Libya has been split between the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and its eastern rival, backed by Haftar.
Elections were initially scheduled in 63 municipalities — 41 in the west, 13 in the east and nine in the south.
But the High National Election Commission (HNEC) suspended elections in 11 municipalities, mostly in Haftar-controlled areas, due to “irregularities”, including unexplained halts in voter card distribution.
The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) commended the HNEC for its “steadfast commitment to ensure credible electoral operations amidst significant operational and security challenges”.
It said it regretted the decision of the eastern-based government to block the elections in areas under its control.
“This is a violation of political rights of the Libyan citizens,” the UN mission said.
Turnout in the municipalities where elections were held reached 71 percent with 161,684 votes cast, according to provisional figures, the HNEC said
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks killed at least 39 people on Saturday, as the Israeli military hinted at an approaching call to push civilians from Gaza City ahead of a new offensive.
The latest toll comes more than a week after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to capture the Palestinian territory’s largest city, following 22 months of war that have created dire humanitarian conditions.
Ahead of the offensive, COGAT — the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories — said that, starting from Sunday, the military would supply more tents and shelter equipment.
“As part of the preparations to move the population from combat zones to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection, the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza will resume,” it said in a statement.
Hamas later slammed the move, saying the announcement was part of a “brutal assault to occupy Gaza City”.
Earlier, Gaza’s civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said conditions in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood were rapidly deteriorating with residents having little to no access to food and water amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
The spokesman added that about 50,000 people were estimated to be in that area of Gaza City, “the majority of whom are without food or water” and lacking “the basic necessities of life”.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties accessing swaths of the Palestinian territory mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.
In recent days, Gaza City residents have told AFP of more frequent air strikes targeting residential areas, including Zeitun, while earlier this week Hamas denounced “aggressive” Israeli ground incursions.
The military insisted in a statement on Saturday that it is “committed to mitigating civilian harm during operational activity, in strict accordance with international law,” questioning the reliability of the death tolls provided by the civil defence agency.
Earlier this month, the Israeli government approved plans to seize Gaza City and neighbouring camps, some of the most densely populated parts of the territory.
On Friday, the Israeli military said its troops were operating in Zeitun.
Ghassan Kashko, 40, who shelters with his family at a school building in the neighbourhood, said: “We don’t know the taste of sleep.”
He said air strikes and tank shelling were causing “explosions… that don’t stop”.
Hamas said in a statement that Israeli forces had been carrying out a “sustained offensive in the eastern and southern neighbourhoods of Gaza City, particularly in Zeitun”.
The group said the military was targeting the area with warplanes, artillery and drones.
The Israeli plan to expand the war has sparked an international outcry as well as domestic opposition.
UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in.
According to the civil defence agency, at least 13 of the Palestinians killed on Saturday were shot by troops as they were waiting to collect food aid near distribution sites in the north and in the south.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza which the United Nations considers reliable.
Four years on from the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the optimism surrounding what was being hailed as a geopolitical victory for Pakistan has vanished.
Just one month before the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, a closed-door discussion organised by an Islamabad-based security think-tank brought together regional experts, retired military officers and policymakers to assess the potential fallout of the Taliban’s rapid territorial gains in Afghanistan amid the US military withdrawal.
While many participants expressed concern over a looming security vacuum and its likely spillover into Pakistan, a few struck a markedly optimistic tone. Among them was a retired senior military official who declared confidently: “The good days are returning. The Delhi-leaning set-up in Kabul is on its way out. With the Taliban back in charge, all Islamabad needs to do is press for the closure of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] and Baloch separatist sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan, and the Taliban will comply. They owe us.”
He was not alone. Across Pakistan’s political and security establishment, the Taliban’s return in August 2021 was initially greeted with a cautious but clear sense of opportunity. A friendly regime in Kabul appeared to serve Islamabad’s long-standing strategic goals: rolling back Indian influence, reducing Western presence and restoring Pakistan’s central role in shaping regional outcomes.
Then-prime minister Imran Khan hailed the moment as the breaking of “the shackles of slavery.” Then-interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, speaking triumphantly at the Torkham border crossing, predicted the rise of “a new bloc” that would elevate the region’s global significance. Even Khawaja Muhammad Asif, then in opposition and now defence minister, posted a photograph of Taliban leader Mullah Baradar alongside US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, captioned: “You may have the power, but God is with us. Allah-o-Akbar.”
Four years on from the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the optimism surrounding what was being hailed as a geopolitical victory for Pakistan has vanished. Instead, Pakistan is contending with a rising wave of militant violence from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan, and which threatens to expand inland. What options does Islamabad have to rethink its Afghan strategy?
Four years later, that optimism has all but vanished. As Afghanistan slips from international headlines, Pakistan faces mounting costs from what was once hailed as a strategic win. Instead of securing its western frontier, Islamabad confronts a resurgence of militant violence, a worsening security climate and a strained relationship with a regime it once considered an ally.
Drawing on recent fieldwork in both countries, this article examines how the Taliban’s return has deepened Pakistan’s domestic security crises, exposing the limits of its longstanding strategic assumptions.
ACROSS THE BORDER, VIOLENCE RISES AGAIN
For the political and religious elders of Bajaur, the stakes could not have been higher. With the government poised to launch a new counterterrorism operation in the district bordering Afghanistan against the TTP and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) — the local affiliate of the transnational Islamic State network — they took it upon themselves to negotiate a peaceful resolution through a jirga.
Their appeal to local TTP commanders was straightforward: either retreat into Afghanistan or relocate to remote mountainous areas to engage security forces. Such a move, they argued, would spare civilian populations from the destruction, displacement and the fear that inevitably follow armed conflict in villages.
Yet the militants, sensing a shift in regional power dynamics, refused.
Emboldened by the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the TTP leaders, according to a participant in the jirga, demanded terms that Pakistan could never accept. The talks collapsed, making renewed conflict all but inevitable. The renewed military operation was launched on August 11.
The Taliban’s triumph in Kabul has emboldened militant groups across Pakistan’s western belt. Alongside the TTP, groups such as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Baloch ethno-separatist organisations such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) have exploited the shifting regional balance to intensify their insurgencies against the Pakistani state.
ISKP — previously weakened by crackdowns by the US, the former Afghan government, and the Taliban — has also been reinvigorated since the Taliban’s takeover. After facing sustained pressure from the Taliban inside Afghanistan, some ISKP fighters crossed into Pakistan, particularly into Bajaur, where the group has since carried out several high-profile attacks.
The release of this year’s Global Terrorism Index (GTI) by the Institute for Economics and Peace think-tank coincided with an attempted hijacking of the Jaffer Express passenger train in Balochistan by BLA militants in March, an incident that drew international attention.
According to the GTI, Pakistan is now ranked as the world’s second most terrorism-affected country, after Burkina Faso, a name unfamiliar to many Pakistanis. The report also highlighted a troubling reality: three Pakistani militant groups, the TTP, the BLA and the ISKP, are among the world’s 10 deadliest terrorist organisations, posing a formidable challenge to Pakistan’s counterterrorism strategy.
Findings from the GTI, corroborated by statistics from law enforcement agencies and other security research organisations, indicate that Pakistan has witnessed a sharp escalation in terrorism since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. In the years since, the country has faced a renewed wave of attacks, including suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, and complex assaults on military installations, political gatherings and mosques.
RESURGENCE OF MILITANT GROUPS
Until 2020, militant outfits such as the TTP and the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group were under sustained pressure from multiple fronts. Pakistan’s large-scale counterterrorism campaigns, including Operation Zarb-i-Azb launched in 2014, inflicted heavy losses on their ranks. Internal divisions further weakened these groups, while US drone strikes eliminated much of their senior leadership. By that period, many TTP factions had either gone dormant or dispersed into Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, including Khost, Kunar and Nangarhar.
In Balochistan, too, attacks by the BLA and other major separatist organisations had declined, due to a persistent security crackdown and internal splintering.
However, the US-Taliban peace talks in Doha and the subsequent American withdrawal from Afghanistan breathed new life into Pakistani militant groups, particularly the TTP. The anticipation of a Taliban victory triggered a wave of reunifications among previously fragmented TTP factions.
By mid-2020, several key splinters, including those aligned with al-Qaeda, had rejoined under the leadership of TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali. In internal communications, Wali praised the Afghan Taliban’s unity and urged Pakistani jihadist groups to follow suit, reportedly telling his commanders: “The jihad in Pakistan will not succeed until all mujahideen unite under one flag, as our Afghan brothers have done.”
The Taliban’s return to full power in August 2021 was a watershed moment for militant ideologues across the region. For the TTP, it was both an inspiration and a validation of their long-term strategy.
Since then, Pakistan has seen a sharp resurgence in insurgent violence. In 2024, terrorist attacks rose 70 percent from the previous year, reaching 521 incidents. These claimed 852 lives, a 23 percent increase in fatalities, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. The surge marks the fourth consecutive year of escalating attacks on security forces and related casualties since 2021.
“PERMISSIVE ENVIRONMENT” IN AFGHANISTAN
The Pakistani military recently claimed it had killed 47 militants in two separate raids, as they attempted to infiltrate from Afghanistan into Balochistan’s Zhob district, one of the deadliest cross-border clashes in recent months. While the military provided few details, it identified the militants as belonging to Fitna al-Khwarij, a term coined by the military leadership for the TTP and other Islamist militant groups.
“While the US may have ended its presence, it left behind an unstable Afghanistan, making it a sanctuary for regional militant groups,” a senior security official in Islamabad tells me. “Whether it is ideological confidence, access to abandoned US weaponry, or physical sanctuaries, these groups are receiving active support or passive facilitation from the Taliban administration in Kabul.”
A recent report by the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team echoed these concerns. It noted that the TTP, operating in a “permissive environment” in Afghanistan, now fields around 6,000 fighters and has acquired advanced weaponry, significantly enhancing its operational capabilities with substantial logistical and tactical support from the de facto Afghan authorities.
Muhammad Feyyaz, a Lahore-based academic specialising in terrorism studies, describes the Taliban’s return as “costly” for Pakistan. “Before the takeover, Pakistan faced no existential threat from Afghanistan. Now, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan poses exactly that,” he says. He said that the Taliban administration is actively backing the TTP’s efforts to regain Pakistan’s tribal belt as part of a larger vision for a transnational Islamic emirate.
While Pakistan’s military demonstrated during Operation Zarb-i-Azb that it could inflict severe damage on militant networks, the security environment of today is fundamentally different, more fragmented, more complex, and far less conducive to decisive action. The political, security, and economic realities of post-2021 Pakistan are inextricably linked to the dramatic shifts in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s return to power.
Pakistan has not been able to mount an effective counterterrorism response against TTP, the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction and other groups due to the US exit from Afghanistan, fractured relations with the Taliban, divergent postures on the TTP and the growing state-society gap in the areas along with Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions, according to Abdul Basit, an expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi meets with Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, in Rawalpindi on May 7, 2023: the resurgence of militant groups, such as the TTP and Baloch separatists, has emerged as Pakistan’s most pressing security challenge in years | AP
POLITICAL CHAOS, FRACTURED CONSENSUS
In recent weeks, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has been navigating turbulent political waters. Meeting with jirga leaders from the former tribal districts, he encountered a unified stance against any new military operation and the mass displacement it could trigger. Tribal elders instead proposed a broad-based, empowered jirga, including federal and provincial representatives, elders and key stakeholders, to open dialogue directly with the Taliban administration in Kabul.
Gandapur also faces resistance from within his own party. From jail, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has warned against authorising military action in KP, particularly in the merged tribal districts. The party’s stance is explicit: no renewed operations on home soil.
This is a sharp contrast to 2014, when the Karachi airport attack and the Army Public School (APS) massacre forged an unprecedented national consensus behind Operation Zarb-i-Azb. Political parties, civil society and the media stood united.
Today, however, major political parties, including PTI, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) and the Awami National Party (ANP), openly oppose a new offensive, warning of mass displacement and social disruption. Grassroots peace campaigns in KP are already rallying public resistance, underscoring that, without political consensus, the state’s ability to act decisively will remain limited. Since 2008, residents have endured multiple operations under different names, yet neither peace has returned nor terrorism has been eradicated, local activists complain.
CROSS-BORDER SANCTUARIES
A decade ago, the TTP was weakened by internal divisions, defections to the ISKP and the loss of senior leaders to US drone strikes. Today, the picture is starkly different. Since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in August 2021, the TTP has consolidated its splinter factions, absorbing smaller outfits linked to al-Qaeda and sectarian militancy.
“They’ve now dispersed across Pakistan, while securing hideouts in Afghanistan,” a senior Peshawar-based law enforcement official says. “The Taliban regime not only shelters them but also arms them with modern weapons and night-vision gear abandoned by US forces.” This level of support marks a significant shift from the previous Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, which had at times cooperated with Islamabad to capture senior TTP leaders, such as Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur.
The Taliban administration’s release of hundreds of imprisoned TTP fighters from Afghan jails has revitalised the insurgency, allowing the group to regroup, rearm and conduct operations with heightened sophistication, according to officials.
Adding to the complexity is the emergence of a new jihadist alliance, Ittehadul Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP), comprised of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur faction, Lashkar-i-Islam, and Inqilab-i-Islami Pakistan. Since its formation, the IMP has conducted numerous attacks against Pakistani police and armed forces, primarily in southern KP. The alliance has also expressed its intention to expand operations into other provinces, including Punjab.
The overall conflict has also seen a growing use of drones by both militant groups and state security forces, tactics that have, tragically, increased civilian casualties, including children.
ECONOMIC CONSTRAINTS, REDUCED US SUPPORT
Pakistan now confronts the challenge of counterterrorism in an environment devoid of the robust external support it enjoyed a decade ago. In 2014, political stability, relative economic health, and American assistance, including funding, intelligence sharing, and targeted drone strikes, played a decisive role in degrading TTP capabilities.
Today, the economic situation is far bleaker. Mounting debt and fiscal instability have left fewer resources for intelligence gathering, advanced technology procurement, and the deployment of specialised manpower, all crucial to effective counterterrorism operations.
According to Basit, “The US exit from Afghanistan, which had provided intelligence and financial assistance while also restricting TTP and other groups’ movements into Afghanistan, altered regional dynamics.”
There are signs of renewed, albeit limited, US cooperation. Washington recently acknowledged Pakistan’s role in capturing a regional ISKP leader linked to the 2021 Kabul airport attack that killed American troops. Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir’s two visits within just one and a half months to Washington underscore Islamabad’s efforts to re-engage with the US security establishment.
On August 11, the U.S. administration designated the BLA and its suicide bomber unit, the Majeed Brigade, as foreign terrorist organizations.
However, Basit warns that it will be nowhere near the coordination we witnessed during the war on terror or the pre-2021 era.
“During that time, it was a US-led, Pakistan-assisted counterterrorism template. Now it is a Pakistan-led, US-enabled counterterrorism equation, where Washington will provide technical support, training and intelligence assistance, and some specialised counterterrorism equipment,” he adds. “But, there will be no funding made available to Pakistan.”
He says that counterterrorism is no more a top priority for the US; it is a tactical concern, and the Munir-Trump bromance will unlock limited, tactical and transactional cooperation on counterterrorism.
BETWEEN BROTHERHOOD AND BLOWBACK
“It’s easy for Pakistan to demand the expulsion of muhajireen from Afghanistan,” says Qari Jamaluddin, a mid-ranking official in the Taliban administration, using the term to refer to Pakistani militants who sought refuge in Afghanistan after Pakistan launched Operation Zarb-i-Azb in 2014. “But such demands do not align with the jihadist worldview, nor with the principles of Islamic or Pashtun brotherhood.”
We met in Kabul on a cold evening in late 2023. I had first known Jamaluddin during his Karachi days. A staunch loyalist of the Taliban’s first regime, his family fled to Pakistan following the 2001 US invasion. In exile, he attended a madressah [religious school] and ran a cloth shop, but his conviction in the Taliban’s eventual return never faltered. “It was only a matter of time,” he would often say.
Shortly after Kabul fell in August 2021, Islamabad pressed the Taliban leadership to stop the TTP from launching attacks inside Pakistan. The effort failed. Instead, the Taliban urged Islamabad to address the TTP’s so-called “grievances” and offered to mediate peace talks, a proposal that exposed the depth of their reluctance to act against former battlefield allies. Talks began but quickly collapsed, leading to renewed violence.
Officially, the Taliban administration denies harbouring foreign militants and frames Pakistani concerns as internal political matters. Yet their counterterrorism policy remains selective: while actively targeting the ISKP, they tolerate the TTP. The Taliban refrain from labelling the TTP as terrorists, viewing them instead as ideological kin and historical comrades-in-arms.
Jamaluddin characterises Islamabad’s support for the Taliban as strictly transactional. “Pakistan backed us to counter Indian influence but, at the same time, it handed over our leaders to the Americans. We endured it because every insurgency needs sanctuaries in a neighbouring country.”
In Pakistan, the Taliban once found an enabling ecosystem across segments of society that allowed them to reorganise and mount a lethal insurgency from around 2003 onward. Without that support, Jamaluddin acknowledges, the Taliban’s rise to power would have been far more difficult.
“It was not the Pakistani state, but the TTP, Pakistani religious activists and madressah teachers that stood unwaveringly with the Taliban,” he says. “They fought and died for us while being hunted by US drones in North Waziristan.”
Many Taliban leaders and experts argue that the reluctance to confront the TTP runs deeper than politics. “The relationship between the Taliban and the TTP is built upon shared ideological, historical, and cultural bonds,” says Jabbar Durrani, an Afghan researcher based in Britain. “This connection extends beyond the top leadership to include their rank-and-file members, who often maintain close personal and operational ties.”
Former-Afghan refugee minister Khalilur Rehman Haqqani, later assassinated in an ISKP attack in December 2024, recounted in a 2023 TV interview how TTP founder Baitullah Mehsud once captured dozens of Pakistani security personnel to secure the release of Taliban prisoners, including Haqqani himself. For many Taliban leaders, such episodes are enduring reminders of shared sacrifice.
This history reinforces the perception among the Taliban’s ranks in Afghanistan that cutting ties with the TTP would be both ungrateful and dangerous. “Any heavy-handed move against the TTP,” warns Durrani, “could trigger internal dissent and drive their fighters into the arms of ISKP, already locked in a bitter conflict with the Afghan Taliban.”
Police officials examine the site of a suicide bombing carried out by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) at a Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) rally in Bajaur district on July 31, 2023: frustrated by a surge in terrorist attacks, Pakistan has adopted a mix of hard and soft power tactics to pressure the Taliban administration in Kabul | AFP
PAKISTAN’S RESPONSE
Frustrated by a surge in terrorist attacks, Pakistan has adopted a mix of hard and soft power tactics to pressure the Taliban administration in Kabul into acting against the TTP.
Since 2022, the Pakistani military has carried out at least three airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, the most significant occurring in December 2024, when jets targeted suspected Pakistani militant hideouts in Paktika province.
In parallel, Islamabad has sought to exert economic and demographic pressure. Since September 2023, it has expelled over one million undocumented Afghans, imposed a strict visa regime at the previously open Chaman border crossing, and tightened Afghan transit trade. These measures, which drew condemnation from UN agencies and human rights organisations, have disrupted bilateral trade and restricted Afghanistan’s access to essential imports.
While Pakistan’s Interior Ministry defended the expulsions as a “sovereign right to regulate illegal foreign nationals”, the timing suggested a calculated move to increase pressure on Kabul.
IS PAKISTAN’S AFGHAN POLICY A FAILURE?
“Whether it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or the US-led intervention in 2001, Pakistan could not remain neutral,” a senior military official remarks when asked if the country’s Afghan policy has failed, as many critics contend. “Our geographic location has never afforded us the luxury of detachment. Proximity to conflict zones involving global powers has historically required us to take sides, always to safeguard national interests,” he adds.
Pakistan’s longstanding policy toward Afghanistan has been a subject of intense debate, often viewed by critics as a series of miscalculations. Yet, officials in Islamabad defend their approach as a necessary response to a complex geopolitical landscape, driven by the country’s unique geographic position. The Taliban’s refusal to act against anti-Pakistan militants now exposes the limits of Islamabad’s longstanding reliance on non-state actors.
From arming the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the 1980s to supporting the Taliban’s rise in 1996, and even after its ouster in 2001, Pakistan has often viewed Afghanistan less as a sovereign neighbour and more as “strategic depth.” Critics contend this policy has produced severe blowback, fuelling militancy, straining border relations and deepening Pakistan’s diplomatic isolation.
Today, after four years of the Taliban’s rule, Pakistan is attempting a delicate balancing act. While it extended swift recognition to the Taliban regime in 1996, its response to the Taliban’s return in August 2021 has been far more cautious. Islamabad has not formally recognised the new government but has granted it de facto recognition, allowing ambassadorial work to continue. This measured approach reflects lessons learned from the international censure that followed its early recognition in the 1990s.
Islamabad is now advocating for an “inclusive” political settlement in Afghanistan, a position it shares with other regional powers such as China, Russia and Iran. This stance, which emphasises incorporating diverse ethnic and political factions, marks a strategic shift away from an over-reliance on any single group, such as the Taliban, and highlights Pakistan’s effort to align its policy with international consensus.
The future of Pakistan’s Afghan policy hinges on whether this new approach can navigate the intricate dynamics of internal security, regional rivalries and the push for international legitimacy.
A TASTE OF RESOLVE
The resurgence of militant groups such as the TTP and Baloch separatists has emerged as Pakistan’s most pressing security challenge in years. The threat is no longer confined to the country’s peripheries, but is steadily encroaching inland.
In Punjab’s Bhakkar district, authorities have warned government employees to avoid neighbouring areas of KP, amid credible kidnapping threats. In Balochistan, the suspension of internet services until August 31 underscores the severity of the separatist threat and the daily disruption it inflicts on residents.
Four years of the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan have not led to regional stability but have instead fuelled a complex web of security, political and economic challenges for Pakistan. A stark and uncomfortable comparison arises: while the Taliban, with limited resources, has managed to maintain internal control and weaken ISKP, Pakistan, despite its vast and sophisticated security infrastructure, continues to struggle with resurgent militancy.
This disparity compels an honest and critical reassessment of Pakistan’s security doctrine. The question is whether the tools and strategies that served Pakistan for decades are still effective against a fundamentally changed, more fragmented and more complex threat.
With violence escalating in KP, Islamabad may soon be forced to abandon limited, intelligence-led crackdowns in favour of sustained, large-scale military campaigns. For many, ongoing peace talks between local jirgas and the TTP serve a dual purpose: proving that all peaceful avenues have been exhausted and building public support for stronger action.
Yet, success will not be measured by force alone. Rebuilding public trust, demonstrating decisive gains and avoiding the cycles of the past will be critical. The path Pakistan chooses in the coming months will not only determine the fate of this insurgent wave. It will shape the country’s security trajectory for years to come.
The writer is a journalist and researcher whose work has appeared in Dawn, The New York Times and other publications, and has worked for various policy institutes. He can be reached at zeea.rehman@gmail.com
BENGALURU: A planned visit by US trade negotiators to New Delhi from Aug 25-29 has been cancelled, delaying talks on a proposed bilateral trade agreement, Indian business and financial news network NDTV Profit reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.
