Two days ago I sat down to write a piece arguing that Pakistan’s patience had run out. Before I finished it, the military proved the point. In the early hours of Thursday, Pakistan struck ten locations in Afghanistan that it says were used to launch and store the drones that came at us a day earlier.
Let me be plain about why I support this.
Look at the sequence. Last week a deadly attack on a police facility in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa broke nearly three months of relative calm. Pakistan responded with strikes in Kunar and Paktika. Then drones crossed in from Afghan territory on Wednesday. Our air defences detected, tracked and neutralised them before they reached their targets. Only after that did Pakistan hit Kandahar, Paktia and Khost. This was a response, not an opening move.
Any government that let drone launches from a neighbour’s soil pass without an answer would be inviting the next one. No serious state accepts that, and Pakistan should not be asked to.
What I keep coming back to is the pattern. For years Islamabad has raised the same concern with the Taliban regime in Kabul through every channel available: terrorist sanctuaries on Afghan soil have to be dismantled. For years Kabul has denied harbouring anyone and called terrorism Pakistan’s own problem. I have never found that credible. The attacks keep coming from the same direction, and the promises keep producing nothing. When diplomacy is used as a delay tactic, it stops being diplomacy.
The drones change the calculation. Terrorists with rifles are one thing. Drone operations are organised, equipped and directed, and they raise a hard question about whether the line between the Taliban government and the groups around it means anything anymore. Pakistan has said it will treat attacks from Afghan territory the same way whether terrorist groups or the regime itself carries them out. I think that is the only position that makes sense. It puts responsibility where control lies.
Pakistan has also shown what it will not do. It did not wait for the drones to land. It did not ask permission. It did not let the threat grow while it waited for a press statement from Kabul to change the facts. A state that defends its people has to be able to act before the damage is done, and this week Pakistan did exactly that.
Then there is the diplomacy. Regional mediation was underway, and I understand the concern that these strikes put it at risk. Pakistan says it does not seek escalation and stays open to dialogue, and I believe that. But restraint only works when the other side thinks ignoring it carries a price. Right now the Taliban leadership has behaved as though it does not.
So here is where I land. Afghanistan’s rulers face a choice they cannot postpone forever. They can build a real relationship with Pakistan, a neighbour tied to them by a long border, trade routes, millions of refugees and a shared history no line on a map can erase. Or they can keep sheltering the TTP, ISIS K and other terrorist networks that kill Pakistani soldiers and police. They cannot have both.
Choosing Pakistan means action that can be verified. Camps closed. Terrorists expelled or handed over. Afghan territory no longer used as a launchpad. Anything less is theatre, and Pakistan has stopped watching the show.
If Kabul chooses the terrorists instead, Islamabad has told them what comes next, and this week it showed them it means it.
I take no pleasure in any of this. Nobody in Peshawar, Quetta or Kabul gains from a longer war. But I have watched this cycle for years, and ambiguity is what feeds it. The clearest thing anyone can do now is make the choice impossible to misread.
The ball is in Kabul’s court. It should stop pretending otherwise.
