Kabul’s persistent inaction fuelling terror
Publishing date: 30 November 2025
Published in: Business Recorder
Pakistan’s repeated appeals to the interim Afghan government to rein in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have reached a decisive moment. For years, Islamabad has warned that TTP militants enjoy sanctuary inside Afghanistan and continue to mount cross-border attacks that undermine Pakistan’s peace and security while jeopardizing regional stability.
The Afghan Taliban’s insistence that the TTP issue is merely Pakistan’s internal matter is an untenable claim repeatedly contradicted by successive United Nations Security Council (UNSC) monitoring reports.
Last week’s meeting of the UNSC’s ISIL and Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee offered yet another confirmation of Pakistan’s position on the TTP’s sanctuary and operational freedom in Afghanistan.
Briefing the committee, Denmark’s Deputy Permanent Representative Sandra Jensen Landi warned that ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K), Al-Qaeda, and their affiliates remain dynamic and geographically dispersed. ISIL-K, she noted, represents one of the most serious threats in Central and South Asia, with an estimated 2,000 fighters targeting Shia communities, Afghan authorities, and foreign nationals. But it was Landi’s assessment of the TTP that should prompt urgent reflection in Kabul.
She noted that the group—now believed to have some 6,000 fighters—poses a “serious threat” to the region and receives “logistical and substantial support from the de facto [Afghan] authorities.” Her pointed observation that the TTP has executed numerous high-profile attacks in Pakistan from Afghan soil, some resulting in mass casualties, underscores the gravity of the situation and the urgent need for remedial action.
For Pakistan, this is fundamentally a matter of national security and stability. As Pakistan’s Representative to the UN, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, reminded the Council, Pakistan has served as a frontline state in global counterterrorism efforts and has paid a staggering price: more than 80,000 lives lost and billions of dollars in economic damage over the past two decades.
Civilians and soldiers alike have borne the burden of a conflict they did not initiate, but were forced to confront as extremist violence spilled across the region. These sacrifices make clear that Pakistan’s concerns are rooted in hard experience.
Still, the threat posed by entities such as the TTP, ISIL-K, the so-called Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), and its suicide wing, the Majeed Brigade, persists—fuelled in large part by the permissive environment across the border.
Islamabad has rightly maintained that the path forward demands more than reassurances from Kabul. What is required is verifiable, sustained action by the de facto Afghan authorities to dismantle TTP infrastructure and deny the group operational space. It also demands consistent international pressure, reinforced by coordinated diplomacy, to ensure that counterterrorism commitments are met.
The Kabul regime must cease evasion and begin acting as a responsible member of the international community.