The Insurgency That Came Home

This is a guide to a border. The short version of this story is the one you already get: a bombing, a strike, two governments trading body counts. Under it sits a machine with three moving parts. The host government, by the UN’s account, shelters the fighters and may not be able to control them. The armed groups keep changing their names. And one side refuses to recognize the border itself.

Thirteen days, two funerals

At about 1:20 in the afternoon on Friday, September 18, a vehicle bomb went off at the mosque inside the Old Police Lines compound in Kohat, Pakistan. Friday prayers were under way. The blast was followed by a siege that the Express Tribune puts at about 20 hours.

Start with the count, because the count is the first lesson. AFP reported at least 31 killed, 16 of them police, and more than 100 injured. The Express Tribune reported an early hospital tally of 22 dead, 16 police and 6 civilians, rising to 23, plus eight attackers killed in the clearance, and 103 injured received at two hospitals. Add the eight attackers to 23 and you get 31. That might reconcile the two counts, but AFP did not say whether its figure includes the attackers, and its report does not break down its 31 beyond the 16 police, so we could not confirm it. Before you compare two counts, ask what each one contains.

A group called Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, IMP for short, claimed the attack, according to AFP and the Express Tribune. The AP, reporting on September 24, said no group had claimed responsibility. Hold onto the name. It matters more than the count.

Thirteen days later, across the border in Afghanistan, Pakistani airstrikes hit Kunar and Helmand provinces overnight. A Kunar resident, Ebad Khan, told CBS News that all six members of one family were killed. The UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said “at least 10 civilians were killed, most of them children,” and 9 more were injured. Pakistan’s information ministry said “initial reports suggest the killing of 22 terrorists” and that “no collateral damage” occurred. The Taliban’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, condemned the strikes as an act of aggression.

Six people in one family. Zero collateral damage. Both descriptions are of the same night. These two counts do not reconcile, whatever you put inside them.

Not every gap is a contradiction, and the Kabul hospital shows the difference. On March 16 Pakistani airstrikes hit the Omid drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul. Two days later the UN’s count stood at 143 dead and the Taliban were claiming more than 400. Then the UN kept checking. In May, after visiting the site and interviewing survivors, families and morgue staff, UNAMA said it had independently verified at least 269 civilian deaths and 122 injuries, and that “the real figure may be significantly higher.” The Taliban authorities put the toll at more than 411. Those two numbers are not at war. UNAMA’s is a verified minimum, the deaths it could confirm itself. The Taliban’s is a reported total. The UN’s report gives the reasons its number is a floor: patient records were reportedly destroyed in the strikes, and some bodies could not be identified. The real dispute is elsewhere. Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said: “We strongly refute and reject these allegations.” Pakistan’s embassy told UNAMA in writing that “No hospital, drug rehabilitation centre, or civilian facility was targeted.” On our reading, the argument is less about how many died than about what Pakistan says it was aiming at.

The attackers who hit Kohat came from somewhere. Who is responsible for them, and why can nobody prove it in a way that ends the fighting?

The facts, and who owns each number

The most careful document on the table is the December 2025 report of the UN Security Council’s sanctions monitors. Paragraph 83 says the Taliban’s “harbouring of TTP leadership” and “facilitation of TTP operations” have “brought relations to a critical point.”

The TTP is Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban. It is a Pakistani insurgency fighting the Pakistani state. The UN puts its strength at around 6,000 fighters, based in five Afghan provinces: Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktika and Paktiya. The UN says that number includes more than a dozen subgroups or factions.

That is the insurgency in the title. Pakistan’s own, living across the line.

The war between the two governments is older than this month. On February 27, 2026, Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, said it plainly: “Now it is open war between us and you.” UNAMA counted 56 Afghan civilians killed and 129 injured between February 26 and March 5. More than half were women and children. One airstrike in Barmal district killed 14.

The second quarter was quieter. It was not peaceful. UNAMA counted 399 civilian casualties in Afghanistan from cross-border violence between April and June, 57 killed and 342 injured, every one attributed to Pakistani security forces. Among them were 112 children and 40 women. Pakistani airstrikes on June 28 alone killed 28 and injured 189. From October 2025 through June 2026, UNAMA’s running total is 499 civilians killed and 1,216 injured. By October 1, UNAMA put the count for this year alone at “more than 1,100” civilian casualties.

On the Pakistani side the scorekeeper is a different shop. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) counted 225 militant attacks in Pakistan in September, its highest monthly figure in twelve years. The attacks themselves killed 259 people. Add everyone killed in security-force operations, 280 militants plus two security personnel and four civilians, and the month’s total conflict toll reaches 545: 103 security personnel, 81 civilians, 15 members of local peace committees and 346 militants. Abductions hit 72, the most in a decade. From January through September, PICSS counts 1,232 attacks and 3,629 dead in attacks and security operations combined, up 52 and 51 percent, respectively, on the same months of 2025.

Keep the labels on. UNAMA counts civilians in Afghanistan. PICSS counts Pakistan. Neither counts the other side’s dead. Any headline that sets one number against the other without saying so is comparing two thermometers in two different rooms.

One more label belongs on the 225. The largest share of September’s attacks was in Balochistan, 131 of them. Mainland Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had 58 and the former tribal districts 34. The TTP’s heartland is not where most of September happened. So the 225 cannot be pinned on the TTP, and Pakistan’s security problem is bigger than one group.

A landlord who never checks the garage

The TTP’s leader, Noor Wali Mehsud, “is believed to spend time in Kabul.” One UN member state told the monitors his family receives 3 million afghanis a month, about $43,000. That is one government’s claim, relayed by the UN, not something the UN verified. The same report says “a majority of those conducting suicide bombings in Pakistan were reported to be Afghans.” Reported, not counted.

The Taliban deny all of it. The UN’s August 2026 report says it flatly: “The Taliban continued publicly to deny harbouring any terrorist groups.”

A plain way to hold this. A landlord rents a house to a tenant. Every night something loud and dangerous rolls out of the garage and hits the neighbor. The neighbor bangs on the landlord’s door. The landlord says he never goes in the garage, and the tenant’s business is the tenant’s business.

Here is how we read the game. The landlord’s denial gets cheaper to keep up every time the thing in the garage changes its paint. The neighbor stops believing any of it and starts throwing rocks at the whole house. That is close to where these two governments sit, and it is why the rest of this piece is about the paint.

The map: who can punish whom

The consulting tool here is the principal-agent problem. A principal answers for an agent’s behavior. Trouble starts when the principal cannot see or steer what the agent does.

Draw four boxes. Pakistan. The Taliban leadership. The factions inside the Taliban. The TTP and its fronts.

On our reading of its public record, Pakistan’s strategy treats the second and third boxes as one. Hit the Taliban hard enough, the reasoning goes, and the Taliban will shut the garage.

The UN’s own language says the boxes are separate. “Within the Taliban there are varying degrees of sympathy for and allegiance with TTP,” paragraph 83 says. “Some senior members increasingly view TTP as a liability.” Then the sentence that matters most in the whole file: given the history, the Taliban “are unlikely to confront or act against TTP,” and even if they wanted to, they “may lack the ability” to.

There is evidence of the leadership trying. The August 2026 UN report says the Taliban moved “approximately 2,000 TTP fighters and families” away from the border, “seeking to rein in TTP.” It says the Taliban’s leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, “reportedly” warned the TTP through back channels to stop attacking Pakistan or risk losing Taliban support. The word “reportedly” is the UN’s, and it carries weight. The report gives no wording for the warning and no source for it.

So the map looks like this. Pakistan pushes on the leadership box. The leadership pushes, maybe, on the TTP. Some factions in between do not want the push to land. And by the UN’s account, the leadership may lack the ability to make it land even if it wanted to. Our reading: pressure applied at the top of a divided principal leaks out the sides before it reaches the agent.

The Taliban’s side of this deserves its full weight. Kabul denies harbouring the TTP or any other group that attacks Pakistan. It says Pakistan should solve its security problems at home, and that TTP and Baloch violence started long before the Taliban took Kabul in 2021. That last point has support. Pakistani data relayed by RFE/RL counted 294 militant attacks in Pakistan in 2021, up 56 percent on 2020, which means 2020 was violent too. The same data shows the rise came hard after August 2021. The TTP claimed 45 attacks in December 2021 alone. And Pakistan’s prime minister at the time, Imran Khan, greeted the Taliban’s takeover with talk of “shackles of slavery” being broken. Pakistan now blames that same government for the attacks.

Why the talks keep failing

Every attempt at peace here runs into one wall. The broker is the host.

Pakistan has tried to talk the TTP down before, and both of its peace tracks, the 2021 truce and the 2022 ceasefire, ran through the Afghan Taliban as the go-between. The TTP ended the 2022 ceasefire on November 28 of that year. The UN’s summary of the whole period is one sentence: talks between Islamabad and Kabul on the TTP “resulted in temporary ceasefires but failed to deliver lasting solutions.”

Once the two states were fighting each other, the talks moved to foreign capitals. On October 19, 2025, Qatar and Turkiye brokered a ceasefire in Doha. Talks moved to Istanbul. On October 30 the mediators announced that the ceasefire would hold and that the sides would set up “a monitoring and verification mechanism.” The statement said nothing about the TTP, which was Pakistan’s central demand. The next round broke down on November 7. Pakistan’s defence minister said the talks were “over,” and that the Taliban delegation would not sign a written agreement: “They said that they would only respect the verbal agreement.” The fighting came back. In early April 2026, China hosted the two sides in Urumqi, from April 1 to 7. Pakistan demanded “visible and verifiable actions against terrorist groups.” Kabul sent a mid-level delegation and denied harboring anyone. In the quarter that followed, UNAMA counted those 399 civilian casualties.

The newest failure came yesterday. On October 5, the eighth round of the Moscow Format, a regional forum on Afghanistan hosted by Russia, ended without a joint statement. Russia’s envoy, Zamir Kabulov, gave the reason: “our Afghan and Pakistani colleagues didn’t see eye to eye.” The dispute was over the terrorism language. By Kabulov’s account, the Taliban objected to what they saw as too many references to Afghanistan in the context of terrorism, though similar wording had passed the year before. Pakistan’s special envoy, Mohammad Sadiq, said more than 4,700 Pakistanis had been killed in the last three years by terrorism “emanating from Afghanistan.” Other regional governments were at the table, and the two neighbors still could not sign the same paragraph about armed groups.

Game theorists call this a commitment problem. A deal fails when one party cannot promise today in a way that binds it tomorrow. Here the party that would have to keep the promise is the Taliban, and the Taliban are the divided principal from the last section. A referee whose brother plays for one team, and whose cousins run the other team’s locker room, can blow the whistle. Whether anyone stops running is a separate question.

None of this proves anyone bargained in bad faith. It shows why a lasting deal is hard even with good faith on every side of the table.

New names, same fighters

In April 2025 a new group appeared: IMP, the one AFP and the Tribune say claimed Kohat. The UN’s December report says it is believed to include elements of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group and Lashkar-e-Islam. Then the line that explains its existence: IMP “is viewed as a front for elements of TTP and AQIS to conduct attacks while maintaining plausible deniability.”

As of late 2025, IMP had claimed more than 150 attacks. The UN report estimated its strength at about 500 fighters, 200 of them under the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group. The monitors say the Taliban authorities are thought to have eased IMP’s movement into Afghanistan for training.

The August 2026 report goes further. AQIS “formed the backbone” of IMP. The UN says the AQIS-IMP nexus was reportedly responsible for the May 9, 2026 bombing in Bannu that killed 21. And AQIS leadership “reportedly remained in Kabul, having been issued tazkiras,” the Afghan national identity card.

A business owner who keeps getting sued learns a trick. He opens a new LLC for every risky job. When one job goes wrong, the lawsuit hits a shell with no assets, and his name never appears on the paperwork. Everyone in town knows who owns the trucks. Proving it in court is another matter.

Be exact about what that chain shows. AFP and the Tribune report that a group claimed Kohat. The AP reported no claim. The UN calls that group a front with AQIS as its backbone. The UN reports AQIS leaders living in Kabul with Afghan papers. Those are UN reporting and a group’s claim, and the line connecting them is our reading. It does not prove any Taliban official directed the Kohat attack. Even IMP’s leadership is disputed. The Express Tribune says IMP is led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur. The UN’s August report names a different man: “Waqas, alias Kalim Ullah.” We name neither as fact.

The brands keep multiplying. On December 25, 2025, the TTP announced new divisions, including a “TTP Air Force.” In early March 2026 it announced a spring campaign, “Operation Khyber.”

The drones themselves are real. At a January 6, 2026 press conference, the army’s spokesman said “405 quadcopter attacks by the terrorists” were reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone during 2025. This year, the state news agency APP reported on May 3 that 246 drone attack attempts had been recorded in the province so far in 2026, most of them described as foiled. The two figures cover different periods and do not compare. GNET counts more than 100 incidents of militant drone activity in the first half of 2026, killing at least 29 security personnel, without pinning all of them on the TTP. Where the drones come from is the open question. Researchers writing for South Asian Voices argue the TTP probably could not have acquired and adapted commercial drones on its own, which hints at Afghan Taliban help. They offer no direct evidence. GNET relays reporting that drones were bought in Kabul. That is allegation, not established fact.

Then, by Pakistan’s account, drones entered the fight between the two states. On September 23, Pakistan condemned what it called a “deliberate and unlawful incursion into Pakistan by drones.” Pakistani officials, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity, said security forces had neutralized eight rudimentary drones launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could reach the city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham, and that Afghan forces fired mortars and other heavy weapons at Pakistani border posts. Mujahid denied that Afghan forces had carried out any drone attacks. On September 24, Pakistan struck ten sites in Afghanistan it said stored and launched drones. Tarar called the strikes “deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate.” The Khost governor’s spokesman reported no casualties there. Mujahid said strikes in Kandahar, Paktia and Khost killed at least four. The Associated Press said the accounts could not be independently verified.

On our reading, each new name makes the denial cheaper and the proof more expensive. Pakistan’s answer, on its public record, has been to stop sorting the names and treat all of it as the Taliban’s doing. That is the logic of the rocks thrown at the whole house.

The line on the map

One more gear, and it is the oldest. The border itself is the Durand Line, drawn in the British colonial era and still contested. In 2024 the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said Afghanistan would never recognize it as the official border. In 2022 a Taliban border commander said the Taliban would not allow Pakistan’s fence along it “anytime, in any form.” The frontier runs about 2,600 kilometers.

That changes what a strike means. When Pakistan hits a camp in Kunar, it says it is hitting its own insurgents on the far side of a border. Kabul does not accept that the border is a border. On our reading, that means a “hot pursuit” raid reopens the argument over the line itself before anyone counts the dead.

The bill for the people in between

Pakistan has three ways to press Kabul. All three land on civilians.

Pakistan’s first is the airstrike. UNAMA’s numbers above are its receipt: 499 killed and 1,216 injured in Afghanistan from October 2025 through June 2026.

Its second is the border. The Torkham and Chaman crossings have been closed to trade since about October 10 to 12, 2025. On August 8, 2026, Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, reportedly announced a decision to reopen all crossings and transit routes. As of October 4, RFE/RL reported that trade was still suspended at all five major crossings, the longest closure between the two countries. Per World Bank figures cited by Amu TV, trade between the two countries ran to nearly $1.2 billion in the six months before the closure: about $832 million of Pakistani exports and $318.9 million of Afghan ones. Sellers on both sides of the gate have been locked out of that trade for a year.

Its third is people. According to UNHCR and IOM, 2,730,338 Afghans returned from Pakistan between September 15, 2023 and September 26, 2026. Since April 1, 2025, 1,876,305 have gone back, and 234,598 of them, about one in eight, were deported outright. Ask why people left. Among undocumented returnees and Afghan Citizen Card holders, fear of arrest was the main reason for return, cited by 95 percent. In the week of September 20 to 26, 5,016 people went back, and 987 of them were deported. Most were not. On our reading, many left ahead of the knock on the door.

Put the three side by side. Pakistan says its strikes hit militant camps. It says the deportations are about illegal residence and security, and the deportation drive began in 2023, before this war. On our reading, the closed gate and the returns press on Kabul all the same. The weight lands on people who are neither side: a family in Kunar, a trader locked out at Chaman, an Afghan family in Pakistan deciding whether to wait for the police.

What each side says, and what nobody can show

Pakistan’s case. Kabul harbors the TTP and others, and the strikes are “calibrated, and proportionate.” On October 1, the army’s spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, alleged that on August 26 the Taliban governor of Kandahar hosted representatives of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), AQIS and the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group. He offered no evidence and did not say how Pakistan knew. An intelligence report seen by the AP alleged that Afghan and Indian intelligence officials helped arrange the meeting. It stays an allegation.

The Taliban’s case. They deny harboring anyone, deny launching the drones, and call the Kandahar story invention. “Such rumors and propaganda are spread to distort perceptions,” Mujahid said. Against that stands the UN’s August line that the Taliban “continued publicly to deny” what its monitors keep documenting. The same report relays member states’ concern that the conflict “could create opportunities for terrorist groups.” It also says al-Qaida’s media arm, As-Sahab, backed the TTP’s operations against Pakistan for the first time on April 28, 2026. One member state told the UN that BLA fighters trained alongside the TTP under al-Qaida trainers in Afghanistan. One state’s claim, labeled as such.

The India question. Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, says India is waging a proxy war against Pakistan through the TTP and the Baloch armed groups, which the state now calls “Fitna Al Khawarij” and “Fitna Al Hindustan.” We found no public evidence for Indian sponsorship in anything we read. What is documented is a warming: Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi visited New Delhi from October 9, 2025, and on October 10 India said it would upgrade its Kabul technical mission to an embassy. Those are the same days as the reported Pakistani strikes on Kabul. A warming is a fact. Sponsorship is a claim.

The numbers. Kohat’s two counts might reconcile, but AFP’s categories could not be confirmed. The Kabul hospital counts, UNAMA’s verified minimum of 269 against the Taliban’s reported toll of more than 411, measure different things and can both stand. The fight there is over whether Pakistan hit a hospital or a military target. Kunar (at least 10 civilians against “no collateral damage”) does not reconcile. In each, the count you see depends on which office printed it and what it was willing to confirm.

On the Kandahar meeting, the one independent voice in the reporting was the analyst Abdul Basit. He called the idea of coordinated cooperation among al-Qaida, the BLA and Pakistani militants “far-fetched.”

What to watch

Five signals tell you where this is going before the officials do.

First, state-on-state fire. The two armies have fought before: several days of deadly clashes in October 2025, and border fighting through February and March 2026. Pakistani officials say Afghan forces shelled border posts and launched drones in September. Watch whether that fighting widens or grows more intense.

Second, paper. Doha, Istanbul, Urumqi and Moscow all produced talks, and none produced a joint text on armed groups that we found. Istanbul’s written statement covered the ceasefire and a monitoring mechanism and said nothing about armed groups. Watch for one, issued in the name of both governments, by themselves or through a mediator such as China, Qatar, Turkiye or Saudi Arabia. A ceasefire announcement alone does not count. A text does.

Third, the claims. The deniability reading predicts that the biggest attacks keep arriving under front names like IMP while the TTP claims the rest. If the TTP starts taking credit for the spectaculars itself, the fronts have stopped paying for themselves.

Fourth, the counts. PICSS’s October number tells you whether 225 was a peak or a floor. UNAMA’s July-to-September update tells you whether the strikes are getting deadlier for Afghan civilians.

Fifth, the gate. Torkham and Chaman stayed shut after an August announcement that they would reopen. If trucks actually start moving, someone paid for it.

Our call

We put it at 85 percent that Pakistan and the Taliban government will not issue a written agreement or joint statement on cross-border militancy by December 31, 2026. We mean a text in the name of both governments with commitments on the TTP or other armed groups, not just a ceasefire announcement.

The 85 is our judgment, not a computed base rate. Every round of talks in this story has ended without a deal on armed groups that held: the two Pakistan-TTP tracks in 2021 and 2022, Doha and Istanbul in late 2025, Urumqi in April 2026. In Istanbul, by Pakistan’s account, the Taliban would accept only a verbal agreement. In Moscow on October 5, the two could not co-sign a regional statement because of its terrorism language. The UN calls the Taliban “unlikely to confront or act against TTP.” A written commitment would ask the divided principal to promise something on paper that the UN doubts it can deliver. That is the commitment problem. The 15 percent covers the active mediation and the cost of a gate that has been shut for a year, which gives both sides a reason to sign something limited.

The call is wrong if, on or before December 31, 2026, a written text is signed by both governments or issued in their joint name, by themselves or by a mediating state such as China, Qatar, Turkiye or Saudi Arabia, and it contains at least one commitment about armed groups. A pledge that neither side will let its territory be used against the other counts. A one-sided readout does not, and neither does a multilateral communique co-signed by other states. We check Pakistan’s foreign ministry, Taliban spokesmen and the Chinese, Qatari, Turkish and Saudi foreign ministries between January 1 and 5, 2027, and we score it in public either way.

The bottom line

The next time a strike or a bombing on this border makes the news, ask two questions before you read the body count. Who printed the number, and what is inside it? And who is the principal?

The first tells you how much the number is worth. The second tells you why the next one is coming. Pakistan is fighting its own insurgency. It lives next door, in a house Pakistan cannot search, under a government Pakistan’s own prime minister once cheered, and it keeps changing its name. Bombs can hit the house. They cannot read the paperwork.

---

Sources

• UN Security Council S/2025/796, 16th report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, 8 Dec 2025 (paras 83-85, 88-89, 97-98): documents.un.org
• UN Security Council S/2026/651, Monitoring Team report, 10 Aug 2026 (paras 91, 97-100, 102): documents.un.org; same file via ecoi.net: ecoi.net
• UNAMA, civilian casualty update, 6 Mar 2026 (Oct 2025: 47 killed, 456 injured; 26 Feb-5 Mar 2026: 56 killed, 129 injured, Barmal): unama.unmissions.org
• UNAMA, Annex B, cross-border civilian casualties April-June 2026 (399 casualties; 28 Jun strikes; Oct 2025-Jun 2026 totals): unama.unmissions.org
• UNAMA, Cross-border civilian casualties in Afghanistan: January-March 2026, May 2026 (Omid hospital: at least 269 killed and 122 injured verified; “real figure may be significantly higher”; de facto authorities’ “more than 411”; Pakistan embassy statement; February-March border fighting), via ecoi.net: ecoi.net
• CBS News, 1 Oct 2026 (Kunar and Helmand strikes; UNAMA “at least 10”; “more than 1,100” year to date; information ministry statement; Mujahid; Ebad Khan): cbsnews.com
• Express Tribune, 19 Sept 2026, Kohat Police Lines (timing, siege length, early hospital tally of 22 rising to 23, 8 attackers killed, 103 injured received at two hospitals, IMP claim and leadership description): tribune.com.pk
• AFP via Manila Times, 20 Sept 2026 (Kohat: at least 31 killed, including 16 police, 100+ injured; IMP claim): manilatimes.net
• Al Jazeera, 18 Mar 2026 (Kabul addiction-treatment hospital; early UN count of 143; Taliban 400+; Tarar denial): aljazeera.com
• Reuters, 27 Feb 2026 (Khawaja Asif “open war” quote), as reproduced by Internazionale: internazionale.it
• Al Jazeera, 19 Oct 2025 (Doha ceasefire, Qatar and Turkiye mediating; “contested 2,600km” frontier): aljazeera.com
• Joint Statement on the Talks Between Afghanistan and Pakistan Through the Mediation of Turkiye and Qatar, 30 Oct 2025 (ceasefire continuation; monitoring and verification mechanism; no armed-group commitment): peaceagreements.org
• Al Jazeera, 30 Oct 2025 (Istanbul: ceasefire maintained, “monitoring and verification mechanism”, no TTP commitment): aljazeera.com
• Dawn, 7 Nov 2025 (Istanbul talks “over”; Asif on the Taliban accepting only a verbal agreement): dawn.com
• Al Jazeera, 2 Apr 2026 (Urumqi talks; “visible and verifiable actions”; mid-level delegation): aljazeera.com
• China Daily, 9 Apr 2026 (Urumqi talks April 1-7, three delegations, per China’s foreign ministry): chinadaily.com.cn
• KabulNow, Oct 2026 (Moscow Format ends without joint statement; Kabulov quote; Sadiq’s 4,700 figure): kabulnow.com; Asia-Plus, 5 Oct 2026: asiaplus.news; Khaama Press (Taliban objection to terrorism references; similar wording in the seventh meeting’s statement): khaama.com
• Al Jazeera, 28 Nov 2022 (TTP ends ceasefire): aljazeera.com
• RFE/RL, Daud Khattak, 13 Jan 2022 (2021 attack data attributed to Pakistani sources; TTP December 2021 claims; Imran Khan remark): rferl.org
• CFR Global Conflict Tracker (Durand Line as contested colonial border): cfr.org; Arab News Pakistan, 17 Feb 2024 (Stanikzai: Afghanistan will never recognize the Durand Line): arabnews.pk; The Tribune (India), 6 Jan 2022 (Taliban commander on the fence): tribuneindia.com
• AP via NBC News, 24 Sept 2026 (eight drones alleged near Kohat and Torkham; shelling of border posts alleged; ten sites struck; Khost no casualties; not independently verified; no group had claimed the Kohat attack): nbcnews.com
• Al Jazeera, 24 Sept 2026 (Pakistan condemns drone “incursion”; Mujahid: at least four killed in Kandahar, Paktia and Khost; Tarar quote; Taliban denials): aljazeera.com
• AP via Arab News Pakistan, 2 Oct 2026 (Sharif’s Kandahar allegation; AP-seen intelligence report; Mujahid; Abdul Basit): arabnews.pk
• The News, 2 Oct 2026, relaying PICSS September data (225 attacks; 259 killed in attacks; 280 militants, two security personnel and four civilians killed in security-force actions; 545 toll): thenews.pk
• The Nation, 2 Oct 2026, relaying PICSS September data (regional split; Jan-Sep totals). PICSS primary not opened; both outlets relay one dataset: nation.com.pk
• UNHCR-IOM Flash Update #113, posted 2 Oct 2026, covering 15 Sept 2023 to 26 Sept 2026 (returns, deportations, fear of arrest): data.unhcr.org; PDF: data.unhcr.org
• Amu TV, 9 Aug 2026, citing World Bank data (pre-closure trade): amu.tv; Dawn, 30 Nov 2025 (Torkham and Chaman closure): dawn.com. World Bank series not pulled directly.
• KabulNow, Aug 2026, citing Minute Mirror (Naqvi’s reported Aug 8 reopening decision, not officially confirmed at the time): kabulnow.com; RFE/RL, 4 Oct 2026 (trade suspended for a year at all five major crossings): rferl.org
• Dawn, 6 Jan 2026 (army spokesman: 405 quadcopter attacks reported from KP in 2025): dawn.com
• APP, 3 May 2026 (246 drone attack attempts recorded in KP in 2026): app.com.pk
• South Asian Voices, 22 Jun 2026 (argument that the TTP likely had help acquiring drones): southasianvoices.org
• GNET, 10 Sep 2026 (H1 2026 militant drone activity; drone purchases in Kabul, as reported): gnet-research.org
• Aaj News, 30 Jul 2025 (Asim Munir on India using “Fitna Al Khawarij and Fitna Al Hindustan”): english.aaj.tv
• ETV Bharat, 21 Oct 2025 (Muttaqi visit Oct 9-16, 2025; Jaishankar’s Oct 10 embassy announcement; MEA restoration Oct 21): etvbharat.com