In the early hours of November 24, 2025, the city of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was rocked by a deadly terrorist attack targeting the Federal Constabulary (FC) headquarters. The assault, which began around 8 a.m., claimed the lives of three constabulary personnel and left 11 others wounded. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) faction of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) swiftly claimed responsibility, underscoring the persistent threat posed by militant groups in the region.
The attack, involving suicide bombers and gunmen, unfolded in a highly secured area. According to reports cited by India Today, one bomber detonated explosives near the entrance to the complex, while two other attackers were shot dead in the parking lot. Pakistan’s authorities labeled the incident a “foiled terrorist plot,” but the loss of life and breach of security sent shockwaves through the nation and reignited simmering tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This latest violence came amid ongoing—yet fruitless—peace talks between Islamabad and Kabul. Despite rounds of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, and later in Turkiye, the two neighbors have failed to make headway in curbing the cross-border militancy that has plagued the region for years. Each side blames the other: Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government of providing sanctuary to TTP fighters, while Kabul insists that Pakistan’s troubles are the result of its own internal policies.
“The TTP still has the capacity to carry out major and coordinated attacks,” Afghan journalist Sami Yousafzai told Voicepk. Yousafzai, who has covered the Afghan conflict for over two decades, warned that every new attack linked to the group only “hardens positions on both sides.” He explained, “Instead of cooperation on security, the narrative turns into blame and counter-blame, which only deepens mistrust. When both sides refuse to accept responsibility, the blame game gets louder, and ordinary people on both sides suffer the most.”
The repercussions of the Peshawar attack were felt almost immediately. In a dramatic escalation, Pakistan launched airstrikes across the border into Afghanistan’s Khost province at midnight following the bombing. The Taliban government in Kabul reported that these strikes targeted the home of a civilian, Waliat Khan, in the Gurbuz district, killing ten people—including nine children (five boys and four girls) and a woman. Additional airstrikes in Kunar and Paktika provinces wounded four more civilians, according to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident,” Mujahid stated, adding that these actions targeted border regions and resulted in further civilian casualties.
Pakistan has not officially commented on the strikes, but in the past, Islamabad has justified such cross-border operations as necessary to target TTP hideouts allegedly harbored in Afghanistan. This justification, however, has done little to quell the rising anger and fear on both sides of the border. The Taliban maintain that the victims were civilians, not militants, and have condemned the strikes as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
The airstrikes have poured fuel on an already volatile situation. Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been steadily escalating, particularly since deadly border clashes in October 2025 that left hundreds dead on both sides. A ceasefire was declared, but, as India Today notes, it has largely remained “only on paper,” with repeated reports of attacks and counter-attacks in the weeks since.
Pakistan’s defense minister, Khwaja Asif, has taken an uncompromising stance, warning earlier in November that Islamabad would consider “open war” with Afghanistan if peace talks collapsed. Although such rhetoric is not new in the fraught history of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, the recent surge in violence has made the threat of broader conflict feel more immediate and real.
Security experts are raising the alarm about the implications for the wider region. Amir Rana, president of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), told Voicepk that the Peshawar attack was significant, as it demonstrated that “the TTP and other militant groups remain active and retain the capacity to launch major attacks against security forces—even in the provincial capital—echoing patterns from the past.” Rana added that Pakistan’s efforts to pressure the Afghan Taliban to deny safe havens to the TTP have so far been “not yielding effective results.” Instead, he observed, “militants appear to be responding to the pressure through intensified attacks.”
The human cost of these ongoing hostilities is being felt most acutely in the border provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Residents in these areas, who have long endured the brunt of military operations and militant violence, are expressing deep frustration with what they see as ineffective—and at times counterproductive—state policies. Rahim Wazir, a resident of North Waziristan and a member of the proscribed Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), spoke candidly to Voicepk: “Despite 21 major military operations and thousands of intelligence-based operations, the state has failed to restore lasting peace. As a resident of Pakhtunkhwa, I believe the current strategy is not helping but actually strengthening terrorism.”
Wazir went on to criticize what he called the state’s “exception policy” toward certain militant groups, arguing that distinguishing between “good” and “bad” militants has eroded public trust and undermined efforts to achieve peace. “If the state is serious about bringing peace to our area, it must first revise this exceptional policy, take all stakeholders into confidence, and support those who raise their voices for peace—instead of arresting or banning them for doing so,” he said.
The cycle of violence—attack, retaliation, accusation—seems to be spiraling, with each new incident making cooperation and trust more elusive. As Yousafzai warned, “If this continues, bilateral relations will deteriorate even further, and the border regions will bear the brunt.”
For now, the prospects for meaningful dialogue between Pakistan and Afghanistan remain dim. The peace talks in Doha and Turkiye have produced little more than photo opportunities and vague statements, while the reality on the ground is marked by bloodshed and grief. With both governments entrenched in their positions and militants exploiting the chaos, the people of the region are left to hope for a break in the cycle—a hope that, for the moment, seems heartbreakingly distant.
