Pakistan is Fighting the Enemy It Once Nurtured

 

Pakistan Is Fighting the Militancy It Once Nurtured

By Wahab Raofi

On Friday, September 18, 2026, worshippers gathered for prayers at a mosque inside the Old Police Lines in Kohat, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the police compound. Gunmen stormed the complex, followed by another explosion. At least 23 people were killed, including 17 police officers and six civilians, and more than 100 were injured. Security forces needed until the next morning to clear the compound.

The attack raised the familiar question: Who is behind the violence? The answer is more complicated than simply blaming the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group Islamabad usually accuses. The TTP reportedly denied responsibility, while Ittehadul Mujahideen Pakistan, an outfit led by Afghanistan-based militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, claimed responsibility. That distinction matters. Gul Bahadur was once considered one of Pakistan’s “good Taliban”—a militant whose fighters focused on Afghanistan rather than attacking the Pakistani state.

That history explains Pakistan’s predicament. The TTP is not a simple Pakistani proxy; it has its own leadership, ideology, and grievances. But it did not emerge in a vacuum. For decades, Pakistan’s security establishment cultivated and tolerated militant networks, sanctuaries, seminaries, and armed groups it believed could serve its strategic interests. Some eventually turned their weapons on Pakistan.

To understand how, go back to the 1980s, when Pakistan became the frontline state in the American-backed war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The United States and Saudi Arabia provided billions of dollars to the Afghan mujahideen. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) served as the principal intermediary. Washington and Riyadh helped build this system. But Pakistan’s generals built and controlled much of the infrastructure on the ground—and kept it after the Soviets withdrew.

In the 1990s, the ISI helped the Afghan Taliban emerge as a major force, providing sanctuary, arms, funding, and recruits from Pakistani seminaries. Pakistan wanted a friendly government in Kabul and believed influence there could provide “strategic depth” against India. After September 11, 2001, Pakistan joined the American-led war on terror, but elements of its establishment continued to shelter Afghan Taliban leaders and other militants. Washington accused Islamabad of playing a double game. The contradiction remained: Pakistan wanted to use some militant groups as strategic assets while preventing others from turning against the state.

That distinction became harder to maintain. Pakistan has paid an enormous price. Its army and police have fought insurgents for years. In 2014, the military launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb; that same year, militants attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing more than 140 people, most of them children. The police officers and civilians killed in Kohat did not make the decisions of decades ago. They are paying for them.

The scale of Pakistan’s current terrorism problem is substantial. The 2026 Global Terrorism Index reported that 1,139 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2025, with 1,045 incidents recorded. Pakistan ranked as the country most affected by terrorism in the index.

Yet Pakistan is not the only actor responsible. The Afghan Taliban government bears its own responsibility. U.N. monitoring reports have continued to raise concerns about TTP fighters operating from Afghan territory. Pakistan says the Afghan Taliban provide sanctuary to militants who attack Pakistan; Kabul denies allowing its territory to be used for such attacks. Islamabad therefore has legitimate security concerns. No government can ignore an armed group operating across its border and attacking its citizens.

But Pakistan’s response also deserves scrutiny. It has carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan in response to militant attacks. Those strikes have produced civilian casualties and deepened tensions. In March 2026, a Pakistani airstrike hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul; UNAMA reported that the hospital was impacted and that dozens of people were reportedly killed and injured.

On September 21, 2026, Pakistan carried out new airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, saying it targeted militants. Pakistan said the strikes killed 28 militants, while Afghan authorities and the United Nations reported that at least three civilians, including a child, were killed. Military force can destroy a militant hideout; it cannot by itself solve the political relationship between Islamabad and Kabul.

The same principle applies to Afghan refugees. Pakistan has every right to register people entering its territory and screen them for security threats. But there is a difference between identifying militants and treating an entire refugee population as a security problem. UNHCR reported that more than one million Afghans returned from Pakistan in 2025, many under mounting pressure, and warned about the humanitarian consequences. A more effective policy would distinguish between a militant hiding in Pakistan and an Afghan family that has lived there for decades.

Ultimately, Pakistan must confront the contradiction at the heart of its Afghan policy. It cannot demand that Kabul eliminate militants while continuing to think of militancy primarily as a strategic instrument. The lesson of Gul Bahadur is clear: a militant once considered useful can become an enemy. Once an armed group has its own organization, weapons, ideology, and funding, a government cannot assume it will remain under control.

Pakistan needs a clean break with the old policy of distinguishing between “good” and “bad” militants. It should use diplomacy, trade, and border access to pressure Kabul to take verifiable action against groups operating from Afghan territory. Military pressure may sometimes be necessary, but it should not become a substitute for diplomacy. The doctrine of managing Afghanistan through proxies was supposed to make Pakistan safer. It did not.

The TTP is not Pakistan’s creation, and Kabul is not blameless. But Pakistan’s history cannot be erased because the militants it once tolerated now attack Pakistan itself. The lesson of Kohat is that a policy of managing militants by strategic interest carries a price. Pakistan can keep managing the consequences—fighting militants, striking across the border, expelling refugees, and burying its police officers. Or it can confront the deeper problem: the policy that treated some militants as useful and others as enemies. The victims in Kohat, including a four-year-old child, are casualties of a conflict Pakistan did not start alone and cannot end alone. It cannot end it while pretending it played no part.