Why Islamabad switched to an “Israeli-style strikes” tactic and why it attacked the region’s main drug market
By Andrey Serenko, special correspondent of “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”
The first major armed clash flared up between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It was sparked by Islamabad’s attempt to eliminate the leader of the Pakistani “Taliban,” Mufti Nur Wali Mehsud, who was in Kabul. The Afghan Taliban responded by invading Pakistan’s border areas and destroying checkpoints of Pakistani security forces. Several Islamic countries called on Islamabad and Kabul to show restraint. However, even if this time escalation is avoided, one should expect rising tensions in the Afghan–Pakistani border zone and inside Afghanistan in the future.
On the evening of October 9 this year, Pakistan Air Force F‑16s entered Afghan airspace and launched several missile strikes on targets in Kabul and the provinces of Khost, Paktika, Nangarhar, and Kandahar. The objects of Pakistan’s air strikes were commanders and elements of the infrastructure of the Tehrik‑e‑Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement located on Afghan territory (see an exclusive interview with a movement representative in NG dated 17.04.23).
The Afghan Taliban officially denies the presence of TTP leaders, fighters, and infrastructure on their territory. Still, Islamabad knows that Afghanistan today serves as a strategic rear for many jihadi terrorist organizations, including the Pakistani “Taliban.” TTP fighters, alongside militants from groups banned in Russia such as al‑Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), use Taliban‑ruled Afghanistan to set up training camps, recruit new jihadists, and expand influence across regional countries.
In fact, the Afghan and Pakistani “Taliban” function as a single jihadi corporation whose leaders actively assist one another. While US and NATO forces were present in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban fought alongside the Afghan Taliban. After the Afghan Taliban came to power in Kabul in August 2021, the Afghan movement began to help its Pakistani counterparts wage jihad against Islamabad to establish an “Islamic system” in Pakistan. A significant share of the weapons and equipment left by the Americans in Afghanistan was handed over to the Pakistani Taliban, noticeably increasing the TTP’s battlefield effectiveness and raising casualties among Pakistani security forces.
For Islamabad, such a turn in long-standing covert relations with the Afghan Taliban was a shock. At first, Pakistani officials tried to negotiate amicably with the Kabul regime to stop its support for the TTP. When that failed, Islamabad imposed economic sanctions on Afghanistan. Those, too, produced no result. Now Pakistan has decided — as the Pakistani Taliban put it — to adopt an “Israeli” tactic of strikes against targets on the territory of another state.
There is no proof that the strike on the evening of October 9 hit its intended target in Kabul: independent sources say Nur Wali Mehsud was not in the SUV destroyed by a missile. In response, however, TTP fighters on October 10 carried out at least six “reprisal operations,” killing more than ten security personnel in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and then units of the Afghan Taliban’s army on October 11 attacked Pakistani army border checkpoints along much of the Durand Line (the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, which no government in Kabul officially recognizes). According to some reports, the Taliban, using heavy weapons, artillery and tanks, crossed into Pakistan, destroying about 20 checkpoints. Pakistani army losses reached almost 60 killed and about 30 wounded.
According to Afghan Taliban media reports, a Taliban military aircraft — also one of the platforms inherited from the Americans and NATO — launched a missile strike on Pakistan’s Lahore. Other sources claim that an airbase in Peshawar was also hit; that base was where Pakistan’s F‑16s took off on the evening of October 9 to attack Kabul and other Afghan provinces.
The Pakistani army did not remain idle. Islamabad’s air force delivered powerful rocket and bombing strikes on targets in several southern and eastern Afghan provinces — Nangarhar, Kunar, Khost, Paktika, Kandahar, and Helmand. According to Pakistani data, these were training camps, warehouses, and TTP headquarters. The Afghan Taliban also suffered: the Pakistani army captured about 20 border checkpoints of the Afghan Taliban’s Ministry of Defense, and up to 40 Afghan Taliban fighters were killed.
Interestingly, the Pakistani army subjected the settlement of Baramcha in the Dishu district of southwestern Helmand province to massive shelling. Baramcha plays a key role in organizing the Afghan Taliban’s narcotics business: the region’s main “drug exchange” is located there, where prices for heroin, methamphetamine, and other drugs are set. The Pakistani forces’ attack on Baramcha was a targeted strike at the drug economy of the Afghan Taliban, which may negatively affect an already severe socio‑economic situation in the “Islamic Emirate.”
The “October war” between Kabul and Islamabad was a heavy blow to various regional platforms for Afghan settlement. Pakistan’s air force attack on Kabul occurred less than 40 hours after the conclusion of the 7th meeting of the Moscow Format consultations on Afghanistan, in which, for the first time, a representative of the Afghan Taliban government, Amir Khan Muttaqi, participated on equal terms with regional countries. As it turned out, the exchange of courtesies in the Russian capital on October 7 did not prevent Pakistan from striking Afghan territory, nor did it stop the Afghan Taliban from attacking Pakistani servicemen.
The Afghan–Pakistani crisis should sober those in the post‑Soviet space who dream of grand “infrastructure of the century” projects — such as a Trans‑Afghan railway (from Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to ports on the Indian Ocean) or the TAPI gas pipeline (from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India). These projects, splendid in presentations, are smashed against the harsh reality of competing interests in the region.
Qatar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia appealed to Kabul and Islamabad to stop hostilities and sit down at the negotiating table. This appeal may be heard within a few hours (though the Pakistani army was still attacking targets in Kandahar province on the afternoon of October 12). But a halt to combat will not remove the deep cause of tension in relations between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan. Kabul will continue to support the TTP, in whose ranks many Afghan Taliban also fight. The Pakistani “Taliban” will intensify its “jihad” against the “pro‑Israeli” Pakistani army and the government in Islamabad. Accordingly, suffering ever greater losses, the Pakistani army will step up pressure on the TTP both inside the country and in neighboring Afghanistan. It is a vicious circle with no foreseeable way out.
