Topic · Terrorism
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the banned terrorist group behind many of Pakistan’s deadliest attacks, which the state calls Fitna al-Khawarij.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was formed in December 2007 as an alliance of terrorist groups in the tribal areas under Baitullah Mehsud, and Pakistan banned it in 2008. Its terrorists attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, killing about 150 people, most of them children.
Military operations, above all Zarb-e-Azb from 2014, drove the group across the border into Afghanistan. Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, its attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan have risen sharply, and Pakistan says its leadership works from Afghan soil. In 2024 the government named it Fitna al-Khawarij. Noor Wali Mehsud has led it since 2018.
The information ministry said Taliban forces fired first on civilians in South Waziristan, as KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi warned Kabul to “have no illusions”.
MILITARY
Security forces killed six terrorists in an intelligence-based operation in DI Khan's Zarkani area, ISPR said, while Naik Ghulam Murtaza and Sepoy Taseer Ahmed were martyred.
ANALYSIS
UN monitors, US intelligence and Russia all warn of terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, as Pakistan becomes the country most affected by terrorism.
INTERNATIONAL
Lt Gen (Retd) Mazhar Jamil, adviser to Pakistan's National Command Authority, tells an IISS London audience India's No First Use policy is a "diplomatic ruse" and defends Pakistan's response to the May 2025 crisis.
INTERNATIONAL
Speaking outside Avenfield House in London, the PML-N president said the army's sacrifices were beyond doubt and that those carrying out terrorism should face no leniency.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan strikes 10 sites in Afghanistan after drone incursion. "Any violation of Pakistan's sovereignty will be met with an immediate and decisive response." Information Minister Attaullah Tarar
NEWSROOM
Secret meetings in Kandahar, millions of dollars in funding, weapons transfers and shared fighters: Pakistani intelligence sources detail what they describe as a network involving RAW, Afghanistan’s GDI, the BLA, TTP and AQIS, with financing and operational cooperation targeting Pakistan.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan's Corps Commanders' Conference held the Afghan Taliban directly responsible for Indian-sponsored terror groups attacking Pakistan from Afghan soil. Reaffirmed Operation Ghazab-lil-Haq, warned on Indus Waters Treaty and declared Kashmir Pakistan's jugular vein. Field Marshal Munir presides.
NEWSROOM
China has formally acknowledged Pakistan's role in the US-Iran ceasefire for the first time in a joint statement issued in Beijing. The statement also reaffirms Kashmir UN resolutions, names TTP and announces a Pakistani astronaut for China's Space Station. The Thursday Times reports.
EDITORIAL
From South Waziristan to Balochistan and Punjab, Pakistan continues to confront terrorist violence that targets security forces and civilians alike. Yet while the world speaks loudly for other states' victims, Pakistani suffering too often receives silence, indifference, or selective concern.
ANALYSIS
Pakistan has moved to shut down the impression of informal peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, insisting that there will be no dialogue without concrete and verifiable action against cross-border militancy.
ANALYSIS
The Diplomat’s piece rests on Ajmal Sohail’s unverified claims, presenting a politically situated Afghan figure as a neutral expert while offering no credible independent evidence for its most serious allegations. It also fails the basic logic test: Pakistan’s all-weather partnership with China makes the claim that Islamabad is targeting Chinese interests extremely difficult to sustain.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, in a message addressed to Sirajuddin Haqqani, recalled the anti-Soviet era by saying Pakistan stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the Haqqanis, hosted Afghan families as guests, and still carries millions of refugees on its soil.
NEWSROOM
The U.S. has voiced support for Pakistan’s self-defence after Allison M Hooker said she spoke with Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch to offer condolences for the dead, backing Pakistan’s right to respond to Taliban attacks.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan’s targeted airstrikes inside Afghanistan have triggered more than cross-border tension. According to sources, a high-level Taliban conference in Kabul exposed rare and deepening fractures within the regime, with disagreements over Pakistan policy, militant sanctuaries, and even leadership succession.
EDITORIAL
There is a certain discipline in Ahmed Sharif’s choice of words as of late. Melodrama is avoided, but denial is not indulged either. If Pakistan is to argue its case internationally, he suggests that it must first lay out its qualms.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan’s top military commander Field Marshal Asim Munir says declarations of jihad belong to the state, alleges attacks are enabled from across the border, and urges Afghanistan to choose between Pakistan and “Fitna al-Khawarij”.
NEWSROOM
Pakistan’s new Chief of Defence Forces, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has tied the future of relations with Kabul to the fate of the TTP, warning Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers that they must choose between partnership with Islamabad or continued tolerance of Pakistani Taliban networks on Afghan soil, as a powerful new tri service command comes online in Rawalpindi.
NEWSROOM
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan has “no hopes left” from the Afghan Taliban after a surge in terror attacks and rising border tensions, calling the group a “ragtag force” as Islamabad demands action against militants using Afghan soil.
ANALYSIS
Kabul’s protection of TTP commanders is not a glitch in the system; it is the system, a living covenant that weighs more than any clause signed in Doha. The Taliban in Afghanistan are no longer guests or leverage to be casually traded away; they have hardened into a parallel sovereignty that Kabul cannot fully control.
