Pakistan will continue current policy if Afghan Taliban keep ‘guerrilla mindset’: Minister

Pakistan will continue its current policy towards Afghanistan unless the Taliban abandon their “guerrilla mindset,” State Minister Talal Chaudhry said on Wednesday.

“Their [Taliban leadership’s] attitude towards us is quite different from what it is with the rest of the world,” he told a private news channel programme.

The remarks follow a series of deadly suicide blasts in Islamabad, Bajaur, and Bannu, all linked to terrorists operating from Afghan soil. In response, Pakistan conducted overnight intelligence-based strikes targeting seven terrorist camps and hideouts in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Paktika provinces. The strikes focused on the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), its affiliates, and Daesh-Khorasan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The state minister said the deteriorating situation is caused by “an irresponsible neighbour and an irresponsible state.” He added, “A state, as they call themselves, but they have not yet emerged from a guerrilla mindset. We also tried to change their behaviour through dialogue.”

“Now, with the practical steps we are taking, we want to change their behaviour and see them in the form of a state,” Chaudhry added.

He noted that the Taliban’s attitude toward Pakistan differs from their domestic policies. “Their supreme leader Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada issues multiple fatwas in a day if there are issues concerning women. But if there is an attack on Pakistan’s mosques, Imambargahs, markets, innocent women, or a bus of school children, there is complete silence,” he said.

The minister stressed that dialogue was the ideal solution. However, “the pattern the government has now adopted will persist if the Taliban’s guerrilla mindset pattern continues.” He warned, “And this war will be won, and all this will end. If it is not resolved the straight way, then it will be completely ended by a hardline approach.”

Following Pakistan’s strikes, the Afghan Taliban fired along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the Torkham and Tirah sub-sectors of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa earlier this week. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said the aggression was met with an immediate and effective response by Pakistan’s security forces, silencing the Afghan side.

The spokesperson warned that “any further provocation will be responded to immediately and severely” and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to “protect its citizens and guard its territorial integrity.”