Tarar urged Afghan government to abandon militant mindset — Dawn

In Pakistan, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said that Afghanistan’s interim government should abandon the militant mindset that he called the cause of the current problems in relations between the two countries. He said this at a seminar on the situation in Afghanistan and prospects for peace, Dawn reports.

Tarar described the situation as the Afghan dilemma and stressed that the problem is highly complex and requires a long-term and sustainable solution. According to him, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been and will remain neighbors, share an international border and mutual ties, but their past has been unstable.

Statements on the TTP

Islamabad has repeatedly called on the Taliban administration in Kabul to eliminate militant hideouts on Afghan territory, including those linked to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group banned in Pakistan. Pakistani officials claim that these hideouts are used to carry out attacks in Pakistan and that Islamabad’s calls have not been heeded.

A monitoring report prepared under a United Nations Security Council mandate for the period from December 16, 2025, to June 9, 2026, states that support for the TTP by the Afghan Taliban contributed to an increase in the frequency and lethality of attacks in Pakistan. At the same time, the document notes that Kabul has taken some initial steps to contain the group.

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Strikes and border incidents

On September 21, Pakistan carried out what it described as measured airstrikes on militant hideouts in an area bordering Afghanistan following major attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The country’s government said that more than 28 militants were killed in the strikes.

Tarar called these actions part of Operation Ghazab lil Haq, which, he said, was launched on the night of February 26 after unprovoked cross-border shelling by the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan later reported that it had shot down eight drones that entered its airspace near Torkham and Kohat.

Last week, Pakistan also said it had carried out precise air and drone strikes on ten locations in Afghanistan in response to drone incursions. A diplomatic note was also handed to the Afghan side over the violation of Pakistani airspace by drones on September 23.