Terrorism in Pakistan.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, twenty years after their ouster by U.S. troops. During their war against the US-led coalition forces, Pakistan remained under immense pressure for allegedly abetting the Afghan Taliban. Nonetheless, it was ultimately Pakistan that played the key role in bringing peace back to Afghanistan by facilitating all the stakeholders to sit on the dialogue table. Therefore, the government and people of Pakistan had attached high hopes that after the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, they would prevail upon the terrorist organisations operating against Pakistan from Afghanistan's soil and help Pakistan to completely eliminate the scourge of terrorism. However, to Pakistan's dismay, not much has changed and at present Pakistan is experiencing a return of terrorism despite a twenty year long and successful war against it. Needless to mention that it came at the cost of almost 80,000 human casualties, and economic losses of $126.79 billion since the 9/11 attacks, accepting and bearing millions of Afghan refugees; besides, enduring immeasurable socio-psycho damages and miseries suffered by mass immigration from the war torn region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan international borders.

Since 2001, the military has launched a series of military offensives against terrorist groups in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The offensive brought peace in those areas and the rest of the country. Many terrorists belonging to various terrorist groups were killed. However, some militants managed to flee to Afghanistan. From Afghanistan, those militants continue to launch attacks on Pakistan military posts and even civilians located near the border in connivance with Indian RAW, Afghan NDS and troops. In 2019, the United States Department of Defense claimed that about 3,000 to 5,000 terrorists belonging to TTP are in Afghanistan.

Pakistan officials repeatedly informed the world that India and Afghanistan were supporting terrorism in Pakistan; a fresh dossier was shared with diplomats on 14 December 2022. In 2017, Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah admitted that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had a foothold in Afghanistan. In 2016, Latif Mehsud gave a public video confession during which he claimed that Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies were responsible for supporting the TTP and other militant groups against Pakistan. The NDS officials have openly admitted to their...