Afghan sanctuaries destroyed as militants shift toward outsourced global attacks
BLUF MAIN TOPIC: Over the past 4 years, since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban have used its proxies – the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) – to carry out asymmetric warfare inside of Pakistan.
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Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia have all tried to use diplomatic means to get the Taliban to end their support of terror groups to no avail. Qatar, the terror world’s banker and arms dealer, also attempted to half-heartedly encourage the Taliban to stop by providing funding to the Taliban
While the Taliban has learned to parrot a line – there are no terrorists on Afghan soil – this week, they added a new refrain to the song – we inherited the TTP because Pakistan refused to take them back after the kinetic operation in 2014-15.
We’re going to start off tonight with a video from 2016 of Ajit Doval, India’s National Security Advisor, explaining how they are going to use the Taliban against Pakistan.
Some will wonder about the timing of this massive onslaught on the Afghan Taliban, but it’s very easy to understand. Pakistan waited until the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Muttaqi landed in India for a 6-day visit, before it unleashed its attack. Muttaqi traveled to India with members of the Afghan intelligence agency, which made it clear that hostilities were going to increase on the Pak-Afghan border.
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Operation Khyber Storm
Over the past week, Pakistan launched a sustained bombing campaign inside Afghanistan - targeting militant strongholds, weapons depots, and cross-border infiltration routes that have fueled years of terror attacks.
These strikes, which included precision drone and air assaults in Kabul, eastern and western provinces, represent Pakistan’s most forceful counterterror operation in recent history. The objective: dismantle the terror infrastructure that Afghanistan has allowed to flourish since the Taliban takeover. Pakistan’s onslaught spread from the north, near Chitral, where Sanaullah Ghafari, the leader of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), is holed up in a Haqqani Network safe house, to the south, along the core infiltration routes used by the Baluchistan Liberation Army.
Reporting confirms that Pakistan closed major crossings, including Torkham and Chaman, after fierce firefights erupted between border units. Dozens were killed as both sides exchanged artillery and heavy machine gun fire. Trade was halted and troops placed on high alert.
Additionally, as a significant spiritual slap in the face, the Islamic Army, known as Imam Mehdi’s Army, has been re-branded by all Pakistani analysts and commentators as Imam Modi’s Army, pointing out the direct ties to India’s Prime Minister Narendar Modi and his government. This represents a significant blow to the efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani, Hamza bin Laden and Sayf al-Adel to build something that represented what Osama bin Laden dreamed. Now, it has been turned into an arm of the Indian state.
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Pakistan’s military also suffered losses during domestic anti-terror operations, including the Orakzai raid that killed 11 soldiers and 19 militants - a stark reminder of why Islamabad refuses to tolerate safe havens just across the border. With the new losses, prior to the retaliation, Pakistan had lost over 500 soldiers to the terrorist attacks.
In response, during the retaliation, confirmed reports put Taliban and TTP losses at over 500 dead, 173 missing, over 1000 missing. Giving the Taliban the most significant battlefield losses since 2021.
https://apnews.com/article/815a9797371db3798d6f996aae0e0c4e
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A Strategic Shift in the Terror Ecosystem
The fallout of these strikes is more than tactical - it’s structural. With their sanctuaries in ruins, Afghanistan’s terror factions are being forced to evolve. Analysts warn that the Islamic Army, now under intense pressure, will postpone efforts for a large-scale “9/11 2.0” operation in America in favor of outsourced terrorism - paying or coercing proxy groups to strike on its behalf.
This is a tested playbook. The Islamic Army has used the “money-for-mayhem” model before inside Pakistan, paying criminal syndicates and ideological allies to carry out assassinations and bombings. The difference now is scale. Expect outsourcing to expand into cartels, violent gangs like TdA, and radicalized cells in the West, where cash, logistics, and ideology can buy deniable violence.
One of the significant successes of Operation Khyber Storm was uncovering the links between the Taliban and Iran, who quickly shuffled Haibatullah Akundzada, the leader of the Taliban, from Kandahar to Tehran. We are also in possession of direct and confirmed intelligence that Iran has been training and housing Taliban special forces at their bases, which will further strain relations between Pakistan and Iran, who has long supported and housed members of the Baluchistan Liberation Army in Sistan-e-Baluchistan, Iran, while blaming Pakistan for supporting Jaish ul-Adl.
Sources:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/12/afghanistan-pakistan-border-clashes-what-we-know-so-far
Choked Corridors, New Routes
Pakistan’s offensive has made movement through Afghanistan far riskier. The border lockdowns and surveillance are disrupting human and weapons smuggling pipelines long used by the Islamic Army.
The result: a shift of operatives toward Syria and Libya, the “tail ends of the funnel,” where longstanding trafficking networks can facilitate travel, training, and procurement outside Pakistani reach.
Syria has achieved a position that should never have been allowed, but it was achieved greatly by the foolishness of Tom Barrack, the US Ambassador to Syria and Turkey, pledging his undying support for the terror regime. As a result, the US has turned a blind eye to Syria issuing passports to terrorists who had been transplanted from Afghanistan and Iraq, both through Syria, but also via Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This makes it more difficult to track them, especially when their names are changed each time the passports are changed.
This is not counting those who have already infiltrated into the United States, Mexico, Venezuela and Canada. Hezbollah and the IRGC have spent the past 20+ years building these networks and will now take greater advantage of them because of the leadership crisis in Afghanistan.
References:
The following video highlights the military offense Pakistan launched at the Taliban and Islamic Army inside Afghanistan …
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The Propaganda War
While Pakistan’s campaign has won broad support among counterterror analysts, Afghan officials are pushing a competing narrative - framing Pakistan as an aggressor and victimizing Kabul.
Afghanistan’s foreign minister told reporters, “We have five other neighbors, all happy with us,” a clear attempt to isolate Pakistan diplomatically.
Afghan officials understand their only real support exists in 2 countries – Iran and India, both receiving significant benefit from the Taliban’s actions against Pakistan. The reality of the situation can be proven from the recent Moscow Summit, where China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, openly declared that Afghanistan must eliminate terrorism from its soil. If all 5 neighbors are happy with them, why did all 5 summarily issue a declaration against them?
Pakistan’s government has also given all Afghans, whether they are legally or illegally within Pakistan’s border, one month to return to Afghanistan, or move to India, they will no longer be allowed to stay in Pakistan. Full stop.
Pakistan has provided refuge to over 6 million Afghans since the Soviet invasion in 1979. Over 3 million still live, under UN refugee status, inside Pakistan. It is time for them to return to their country, as they continuously state their love of Afghanistan over Pakistan. Either they return to Afghanistan or they can travel to India, Afghanistan’s best friend, and reset their lives there, but they must leave Pakistan or be considered enemies of the state and dealt with under those conditions.
While Pakistan understands the terrorist rights organizations will create numerous issues with Pakistan repatriating Afghan to their own country, Pakistan holds a simple example – when Iran repatriated over 2 million Afghans to Afghanistan by force, banned their entry, residence and work in 19 provinces, not one terrorist rights organization had a word to say. Iran didn’t learn their lesson when Israel attacked and Afghans were collaborators with Israel against Iran, the state that had given them refuge.
Europe has also learned this lesson, with Germany looking to repatriate tens of thousands of Afghans, and the UK finding the bulk of their sexual assaults in the last 4 years are linked to men of Afghan origin.
Pakistan’s defense leadership has dismissed this as theater, emphasizing that the Taliban continues to shelter terrorists responsible for the Orakzai and Bannu attacks. Islamabad has now suspended official ties with Kabul and warned hostilities could resume “anytime.”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1948697
What Comes Next
More Precision Strikes: Expect additional Pakistani air operations if Afghan militants attempt to rebuild sanctuaries.
Financial Activity Spikes: Watch for unusual hawala transfers or procurement patterns linking terror groups with cartels or gangs.
Shift to Mediterranean Routes: Increased human trafficking and illicit transport through Syria and Libya as Afghan routes close.
Coordinated Disinformation: Afghan diaspora lobbying in Washington, Brussels, and London to frame Pakistan as destabilizing.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s air campaign achieved what years of diplomacy could not - it directly crippled Afghanistan’s terror ecosystem. But the pressure won’t end the threat. It will mutate it.
With physical sanctuaries under fire, the Islamic Army and allied groups will pivot toward outsourced terrorism - leveraging cartels, gangs, and radicalized actors abroad to strike by proxy.
The battlefield has shifted from mountains and border posts to cities and financial networks. Pakistan’s strikes bought time, but the next wave of conflict won’t come from the skies - it will come from within the shadows.
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