Pakistan Denies Supporting Militants in Afghanistan Following Taliban Minister’s Warning

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday dismissed allegations that it aided fighters entering Afghanistan after a Taliban minister cautioned Pakistan’s military and intelligence services against testing Afghan patience amid renewed tensions between the neighboring countries.

Afghanistan’s defense ministry claimed that fighters, including members of Daesh, crossed from Pakistan with Islamabad’s alleged backing. It stated that its forces killed 41 fighters and captured 62 in the northeastern province of Nuristan’s Kamdesh district between Sunday and Tuesday. The casualty figures and the claims of Pakistani involvement could not be independently verified.

These accusations add to an ongoing dispute over militant activity that has sparked repeated clashes between the two nations. Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban authorities of harboring militants who launch attacks on its territory, a charge Kabul denies.

“The latest allegations by the so‑called Minister for Borders and other mouthpieces of the Taliban regime seeking to attribute the fighting in Nuristan to Pakistan are self‑serving lies intended to divert attention from serious internal oppression, dissent, and instability faced by the terror‑sponsoring regime,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a post on X.

The statement followed remarks by Noorullah Noori, the Taliban’s minister for borders and tribal affairs, who warned Pakistan’s military and intelligence services and urged them to learn from the experience of foreign powers that had fought in Afghanistan.

“You should not test the patience and endurance of Afghans,” Noori said, calling on armed opponents of Taliban rule to abandon fighting and return to Afghanistan.

Islamabad had previously rejected the Nuristan allegations on September 27, specifically denying that its security forces or intelligence agencies recruited or trained former Afghan security personnel or facilitated Daesh or other militant groups operating in Afghanistan.

In that earlier statement, Pakistan said no independently verifiable evidence had been presented to substantiate its involvement.

The exchange follows Pakistan’s launch of airstrikes in Afghanistan last week, in which it said it targeted militant hideouts in retaliation for drone attacks. Kabul denied launching the drones and said those killed in the strikes were civilians.

At the heart of the long‑standing dispute is the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek‑e‑Taliban Pakistan, an armed group separate from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing sanctuary to the group, which conducts attacks on Pakistani security forces. The Afghan government rejects the charge.

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