Islamabad

The Pakistan Army has alleged that the Afghan Taliban is facilitating the infiltration of terrorists and smugglers across the border to carry out attacks inside the country, further straining bilateral relations between Islamabad and Kabul.

The accusation was made by Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, head of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), during an interaction with journalists on Tuesday, a video of which was released on Friday evening.

According to the military spokesperson, Afghan Taliban forces have been opening fire on Pakistani border posts “to provide a cover for illegal infiltration of terrorists and even smugglers into Pakistan”.

“Both sides guard their borders. But on the other side is such a country whose posts first engage your posts through fire. And then they have them (terrorists) pass through the gaps,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said, adding that the attacks on Pakistani posts were “extremely coordinated”.

Responding to criticism over how infiltration and smuggling occur despite heavy military deployment, the spokesperson said Pakistan has established posts every 15–25 km along its 2,500-km border with Afghanistan, but sealing the frontier completely was not possible — “even the US could not fully stop illegal crossings from Mexico”.

He rejected accusations by the Afghan Taliban that Pakistan had conducted airstrikes inside Afghanistan, while stressing that Islamabad makes “no distinction between good and bad Taliban”.

Lt Gen Chaudhry also highlighted extensive intelligence-based operations (IBOs) against militant groups, saying 4,910 operations have been carried out since November 4 — averaging 233 per day — resulting in the killing of 206 militants. Since January, Pakistan has conducted 67,023 IBOs nationwide: over 53,000 in Balochistan, more than 12,800 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and roughly 850 in other regions.

According to ISPR, the country has witnessed 4,729 terrorist incidents this year, with 3,357 in KP, 1,346 in Balochistan and 26 elsewhere.

The spokesperson also linked the deteriorating border situation to the absence of civilian administration in the frontier belt and the socio-tribal structure of the region. “There are 29 divided tribes whose populations live on both sides of the border. How will you control movement there?” he said.

He urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to crack down on illegal vehicles and smuggled goods, pointing to what he called a growing “terror-crime nexus”.

On the collapse of recent Pakistan–Afghanistan talks, Chaudhry said Islamabad had shared evidence of TTP cells, funding channels and operations being run from Afghan soil. Pakistan, he said, was open to a “third-party agreement” to ensure a verifiable mechanism to curb cross-border terrorism.

Citing a report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the spokesperson said equipment worth over USD 7.2 billion was left behind following the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, and claimed the Afghan Taliban had failed to transition into a functioning state, instead supporting non-state actors including the TTP, BLA, Al-Qaeda and Daesh.

Defending the closure of border trade with Afghanistan, he said: “Blood and business cannot go together. Security comes first.”

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Ties between the neighbours remain tense amid Pakistan’s repeated accusations that the Afghan regime has failed to deny safe sanctuaries to TTP militants. Though the two sides agreed to a ceasefire last month, Pakistan’s Foreign Office said the truce is effectively void as it was conditional on the Afghan Taliban preventing attacks inside Pakistan — a commitment Islamabad says has not been honoured.