Pakistan carried out a series of airstrikes in Afghanistan on Thursday, targeting members and facilities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
According to eyewitnesses, multiple strikes took place in Kabul as well as the Paktika and Khost provinces near the Afghan-Pakistani border. Pakistani officials described the operation as part of an ongoing counterterrorism campaign against militants responsible for recent attacks inside Pakistan.
Unconfirmed reports circulating in Pakistani media claim that TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud was among those targeted, along with senior commanders Qari Saifullah Mehsud and Khalid Mehsud. The three were reportedly inside a vehicle struck by a precision-guided missile in the Afghan capital. While some sources have suggested that Mehsud was killed, neither the Pakistani government nor the TTP has issued an official statement confirming his status.
A recording surfaced on social media Thursday night in which a man claiming to be Noor Wali Mehsud stated he was unharmed. However, the authenticity of the message has not yet been verified.
Thursday’s attacks mark the sixth known series of Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan this year. While Pakistan has regularly targeted TTP strongholds in Afghanistan’s border provinces, this is the first time its military has struck inside Kabul itself. Analysts view the operation as a significant escalation in Islamabad’s campaign against the group.
The airstrikes appear to have been launched in response to a deadly ambush by TTP fighters on a Pakistani military convoy in the Kurram district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province a day earlier. The attack killed several Pakistani soldiers and underscored the growing threat the TTP poses along the country’s western frontier.
Despite sharing religious and cultural ties with the Afghan Taliban—officially known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA)—the TTP has remained organizationally independent since its formation in the mid-2000s. Both groups are dominated by Pashtun factions but have pursued separate agendas.
Following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the TTP found renewed sanctuary across the border, taking advantage of sympathetic elements within the IEA. Islamabad has repeatedly demanded that Kabul either expel TTP militants or relocate them to northern Afghanistan, far from the Pakistani border. However, those calls have largely gone unanswered, fueling growing tensions between the two governments.