Mosharraf Zaidi, the prime minister’s spokesperson for foreign media, said on Tuesday said that the Afghan Taliban regime initiated unprovoked firing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham and Tirah. In a post on the social media platform X, he said, “Pakistan’s security forces responded immediately and effectively, silencing the Taliban aggression.” He said that any further provocation would be responded to “immediately and severely”. He said Pakistan would “continue to protect its citizens and guard its territorial integrity”. The development comes after Pakistan targeted terrorist camps and hideouts overnight in the Nangarhar and Paktika provinces of Afghanistan over the weekend, with an official saying that “more than 80” terrorists had been killed in the air strikes. The strikes were the most extensive military engagement between the two neighbours since border clashes broke out in October last year. According to an information ministry statement, issued in the early hours of Sunday, the strikes were carried out in res­ponse to a number of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan — such as the suicide bombing at an imambargah in Islamabad and a number of attacks in Bannu and Bajaur during Ramazan. “Pakistan has conclusive evidence that these acts of terrorism were perpetrated by Khwarij at the behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers,” it said. The information ministry said that in a retributive response, Pakistan carried out “intelligence-based selective targeting of seven terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Pakistani Taliban [ Fitna al Khw­arij ] and its affiliates, and [Islamic State-Khorasan] at the border region of Pakistan-Afghan border with precision and accuracy”. Fitna al Khwarij is the term the state uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). “Despite repeated efforts by Pak­istan to urge the Afghan Tali­ban Regime to take verifiable mea­sures to deny use of Afghan territory by terrorist groups and foreign proxies to carry out terrorist activities in Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban Regime failed to undertake any substantive action against them,” the statement noted. Souring relations There has been a resurgence in terrorism in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Islamabad has repeatedly urged the Taliban administration to dismantle terrorist sanctuaries on Afghan soil, particularly those linked to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. Officials say those appeals have gone unheeded. Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan heightened once again after the Feb 16 vehicle-borne suicide attack on a joint security forces post in Bajaur district near the Afghan border. Terrorists belonging to the TTP attempted to breach the Malangi check post and rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into its perimeter wall after an exchange of fire. Eleven Pakistani soldiers were martyred. A young girl also died, and seven others, including women and children, were injured when a nearby residential building was damaged in the blast. Investigators said the suicide bomber, identified as Amad, alias Qari Abdullah or Abu Zar, was a member of the Afghan Taliban’s special forces from Balkh province. The TTP claimed responsibility for the assault. Then, on Feb 21, a lieutenant colonel and a sepoy were martyred in a suicide attack during an intelligence-based operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district. In its statement, the military reiterated that terrorists were “using Afghan soil” for carrying out attacks inside Pakistan, “violating the sanctity of the holy month of Ramazan”. “Pakistan will not exercise any restrain and operations would continue against the perpetrators of this heinous and cowardly act for justified retribution against khwarij , irrespective of their location,” the ISPR asserted. On Feb 19, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had warned that Pakistan would not hesitate to conduct strikes inside Afghanistan if attacks continued from across the border, saying military options remained viable. In November last year, Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, had claimed that Pakistan had “bombed” Khost province, and carried out air strikes in Kunar and Paktika provinces. At the time, Pakistan had neither confirmed nor denied the strikes, which were reported the same day a deadly suicide attack on the Federal Constabulary headquarters saw three personnel embrace martyrdom and 12 sustain injuries. The strikes were reported almost a month after deadly border clashes at the Pak-Afghan border had resulted in the martyrdom of 23 Pakistani soldiers and the killing of over 200 Taliban and affiliated terrorists, according to the ISPR. The skirmishes began “on the night of Oct 11/12, 2025, [after] Afghan Taliban and India-sponsored Fitna-al-Khawarij launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistan, along the Pak-Afghan border”.