ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Secret meetings in Kandahar, multimillion-dollar financing, weapons transfers and the movement of fighters are detailed in a classified intelligence document. It outlines what Pakistani security sources describe as an increasingly organised network linking India’s foreign intelligence service, Afghanistan’s intelligence apparatus and terrorist groups carrying out attacks inside Pakistan.
The document, first reported by The News on Saturday, traces growing cooperation between the Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS. It identifies India’s Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, and Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Intelligence, or GDI, as central actors in the network.
The intelligence assessment presents the relationship not as a series of isolated contacts but as a coordinated arrangement in which fighters, money, weapons and training are shared among groups operating against Pakistan.
The Thursday Times has not independently authenticated the classified document or verified its specific intelligence findings. India and Afghanistan’s Taliban administration have previously rejected Pakistani accusations that they support terrorist activity against the country.
How the network took shape
According to intelligence gathered by Pakistani security agencies, cooperation between the BLA and TTP developed around 2025, building on terrorist training camps already operating in Afghanistan.
The assessment states that Afghanistan’s GDI subsequently worked to establish closer links between the BLA, TTP and other terrorist organisations, acting on directions attributed in the document to Taliban supreme leader Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada.
RAW is identified by the intelligence sources as having helped coordinate meetings involving BLA leaders and efforts to secure outside financing.
The document describes the resulting relationship as encompassing logistics, financing and operations, including the provision of trained fighters for attacks inside Pakistan. It points to the expansion of BLA operations into Pashtun areas of Balochistan and the increased lethality of attacks elsewhere in the province as signs of growing operational coordination.
The Kandahar meetings
A series of meetings, several of them in Kandahar, forms a central part of the intelligence account.
On May 26, 2026, Mullah Shireen, the Taliban-appointed governor of Kandahar, met representatives of AQIS and the TTP-linked Gul Bahadur group and sought their assistance for future BLA operations, according to the document.
Three further meetings followed in July.
At the first, intelligence sources say, the GDI committed full support for BLA operations inside Pakistan.
At the second, held at a TTP compound in Kandahar, the BLA is said to have provided 3.5 million afghanis to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar to fund joint terrorist activity in Balochistan.
The third, according to the intelligence account, was held outside Afghanistan between RAW and the GDI chief. A decision was taken there to support coordinated BLA and TTP operations in Balochistan, with the document stating that RAW provided more than $7.8 million for terrorist activities.
The financial transfers described by the intelligence sources have not been independently confirmed.
Security sources also describe an emergency review meeting convened in Kandahar on August 26, 2026, bringing together senior figures associated with the BLA, TTP and al-Qaeda. It was held as the groups faced mounting pressure from Pakistani security forces, according to the intelligence account.
Among those identified as attending from the BLA were Bashir Zeb, Khalil Baloch, Sifatullah Mengal, Anwar Nizami and Majeed Baloch. Figures representing the TTP and allied networks included Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Mullah Mirajuddin, Mullah Asad Waziristani and Mujeeb ur Rehman Gujjar.
BLA representatives raised concerns about shortages of manpower and resources, the document states. They were subsequently assured that TTP and AQIS fighters would provide manpower, while weapons and logistical assistance would be made available for operations across Balochistan.
The intelligence material also refers to special instructions concerning support for the BLA, issued on September 1 from Akhundzada’s secretariat.
The weapons directive
A separate directive included in the intelligence material is attributed to the Taliban’s Directorate of Bait ul Maal Stability, Registration and Supervision. It instructs a south-western depot to release and transport weapons to an organisation identified as the Baloch Refugee Coordination Office, which Pakistani intelligence sources describe as a cover for the BLA.
The weapons listed include assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition, with the GDI office in Kandahar identified as facilitating their movement.
Who fights, who claims
The intelligence assessment also describes an arrangement under which fighters belonging to one organisation can participate in attacks subsequently claimed by another.
According to security sources, TTP and AQIS fighters provide manpower for some operations that are publicly claimed by the BLA. The document says the arrangement is intended to prevent AQIS, which is subject to international sanctions, from attracting scrutiny over individual attacks.
Security sources point to the September 4 attack in Ziarat as an example. Although responsibility was claimed by the BLA, the intelligence assessment states that TTP fighters carried out the attack following arrangements reached at the August 26 Kandahar meeting.
Mullah Merajuddin Farahi, described as a former TTP figure, is identified by the intelligence sources as coordinating manpower, financing, weapons and ammunition for selected BLA operations in Balochistan.
The assessment further states that newly recruited Baloch fighters are being trained at a specialised AQIS facility headed by Mullah Obaidullah Asim.
Pakistan takes its case abroad
The disclosures come as Islamabad intensifies its warnings over terrorist organisations operating from Afghanistan.
At the United Nations, Pakistan has repeatedly raised the relationship between the TTP and Baloch terrorist groups. In an August 2025 Security Council statement, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, said there was “credible evidence” of cooperation between the TTP, BLA and Majeed Brigade, including the sharing of training camps. He also accused Pakistan’s principal regional adversary of financing and supporting terrorist proxies, without naming India in that passage.
The issue returned to the Security Council this week. Addressing a meeting on Afghanistan on September 16, Ahmad said more than 4,700 Pakistanis had been killed in terrorism linked to Afghanistan during the preceding three years and again described connections among terrorist groups operating there. He also referred to external actors supporting proxies targeting Pakistan.
Islamabad maintains that Afghan territory is being used by organisations carrying out attacks inside Pakistan and has repeatedly called on the Taliban authorities to take concrete and verifiable action against them.
The newly reported intelligence material goes further, setting out what Pakistani security sources describe as the architecture behind that violence, from financing and training to meetings, weapons transfers and the sharing of fighters.
Two senior security officials commenting on the document told The News that its findings corroborated Islamabad’s longstanding concerns about the scale of cross-border facilitation. The newspaper said attempts to obtain comment from a Taliban spokesperson were unsuccessful.
