AsadabadPakistan’s drone killed 7 at Sayed Jamaluddin University, local officials said.
Islamabad calls the campaign counter-terrorism, but its strikes have hit schools, mosques, and civilian homes across Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
Kabul and Islamabad met for China-mediated talks in Urumqi in April; Pakistan has not halted operations since.
Sources: Drop Site News
THE DURAND LINE
The 2,640-km border was drawn in 1893 by British colonial agent Sir Mortimer Durand and Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan. It cut the Pashtun homeland in half — roughly 15 million Pashtuns now live on the Pakistani side, 15 million on the Afghan. No Afghan government, including the Taliban, has ever formally recognized it as an international border.
THE TTP PROBLEM
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is distinct from the Afghan Taliban — same ideological lineage, separate command. After the Afghan Taliban retook Kabul in 2021, TTP fighters who had sheltered in Afghan border provinces grew bolder. Pakistan's strike campaign is an attempt to do what it accuses Kabul of refusing — eliminate TTP sanctuaries by force.
THE STRATEGIC DEPTH DOCTRINE
For decades Pakistan's military pursued 'strategic depth' — a friendly Afghanistan as a fallback against India. The 2021 Taliban victory was meant to vindicate this doctrine. Instead, the Afghan Taliban has refused to act against TTP, hosted Indian diplomatic openings, and disputed the Durand Line — inverting every assumption the doctrine rested on.
THE PRECEDENT OF AERIAL STRIKES
Pakistan launched its first acknowledged airstrikes inside Afghanistan in April 2022, hitting Khost and Kunar. The pattern has escalated: drone strikes in 2024, broader campaigns in 2025–26. Each round has produced civilian casualties at religious schools, madaris, and homes — the same pattern the US drone campaign produced in Pakistan's tribal areas a decade earlier.
THE URUMQI TRACK
China hosted Pakistan and Afghan Taliban officials in Urumqi in April. Beijing's interest is concrete: the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) runs through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and CPEC engineers have been TTP targets. China wants the war to end on terms that protect its workers — neither side has given it that.
WHO LIVES IN KUNAR
Kunar is a Pashtun-majority province of forested valleys along the Pakistani border. It hosted some of the heaviest fighting of the Soviet war and the US war that followed. The terrain — narrow valleys, dense villages, mosque-and-madrasa social structure — means airstrikes hitting 'militant compounds' routinely hit civilian gatherings. The pattern is structural, not incidental.