He stressed that Pakistan’s problem is with the Afghan Taliban regime, not with the Afghan people.
Director General Inter-Services Public Relations Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry. Photo: Archive
Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has issued a stark warning that the Afghan regime is now a threat not only to Pakistan but to the entire region and the world, citing the abandonment of US military equipment worth $7.2 billion during the US withdrawal.
Speaking to senior journalists on 25 November on national security issues, DG ISPR detailed extensive counter-terrorism operations and criticized the Afghan Taliban’s failure to prevent cross-border incursions and its continued patronage of militant groups.
Read: DG ISPR rejects Kabul’s claims on airstrike, says Pakistan ‘does not operate covertly’
Lt Gen Chaudhry said Pakistani security forces have carried out 4,910 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) since November 4, 2025, killing 206 terrorists. During the current year, a total of 67,023 IBOs have been carried out across the country, resulting in the deaths of 1,873 terrorists, including 136 Afghans.
He highlighted the extreme difficulty of managing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which is very challenging and comprises difficult terrain, especially the 1,229 kilometer stretch in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with 20 crossing points.
A key element of the DG ISPR briefing was the exposure of a “very strong nexus between politics, terrorism and crime” operating in border areas. He claimed that this nexus is facilitated by the “Fitna al-Khawarij” and uses non-customized paid vehicles, of which millions are allegedly in circulation, in suicide attacks inside Pakistan.
“If non-personalized payment vehicles are circulating in your province, who is responsible for stopping them?” he questioned, stating that illegal smuggling fuels the terrorist network. The crackdown on Iranian diesel smuggling has seen daily volume fall from 20.5 million liters to 2.7 million liters, with profits previously funding groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Youth Council (BYC).
Read more: Army rejects claim that Afghan airstrikes are ‘baseless’
On the diplomatic front, DG ISPR reaffirmed Pakistan’s clear stance on the Doha Agreement, demanding that the Afghan Taliban regime stop facilitating terrorists, whose leadership and infrastructure, including Al Qaeda and Daesh, exist in Afghanistan and receive weapons and funding for use against Pakistan.
Pakistan calls on the Afghan regime to agree on a “verifiable mechanism”, stating that Pakistan would have no objection if this mechanism were established by a third party.
He dismissed the Taliban regime’s claim that the militants are Pakistani citizens who emigrated and are “guests”, challenging them to hand over any Pakistani citizens to be treated according to Pakistani law.
Lieutenant General Chaudhry reiterated that the Afghan regime is currently harboring “non-state actors” that pose a threat to several countries in the region, and pointed to the Taliban’s failure to establish an inclusive state and government after 2021. He stressed that Pakistan’s problem is with the Afghan Taliban regime, not the Afghan people, and criticized the lack of representation of all ethnicities and the exclusion of 50 percent of women.
Also read: 2025: security forces carry out more than 67,000 IBOs
Concluding his remarks, he emphasized that “bloodshed and trade cannot go together”, linking the closure of trade with Afghanistan to Pakistan’s need to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
