Minister of State for the Interior, Talal Chaudhry. Photo: Archive
Minister of State for Home Affairs Talal Chaudhry said on Wednesday that Pakistan has beefed up security and arrested dozens of suspects over fears of a rising wave of terror attacks following its airstrikes in Afghanistan.
“Our forces are on high alert to combat any attack,” Chaudhry said, adding: “You know that militants always react when we go after their hideouts in Afghanistan.”
Pakistan carried out airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan over the weekend on what it said were terrorist targets responsible for a series of recent suicide bombings on Pakistani soil.
Islamabad blames Kabul for allowing fighters to use Afghanistan as a safe haven. Kabul denies the allegations and says militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem.
Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire along their border on Tuesday, with each side accusing the other of starting the standoff.
There have also been a series of terrorist attacks, including the ambush of a police vehicle in Kohat that killed five officers and two civilians and a suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint that killed two police officers.
Chaudhry said the terrorists’ retaliation attacks showed that Islamabad had links in Afghanistan, adding that forces had prevented several attacks in recent weeks and arrested several suspects, including Afghans.
Security forces have accelerated search and intelligence operations and “have arrested dozens of suspected militants, their leaders and their facilitators,” the minister said.
Multiple sources added that intelligence agencies have issued alerts about a possible increase in terrorist attacks in the coming days.
Sources said urban centers, markets, security forces and places of worship could be possible targets, according to the alerts.
“In our official communications we have been strongly warned about further terrorist attacks. In this regard, we have almost doubled our search operations across Pakistan,” an intelligence official said.
Another intelligence official added that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were already under terrorist attacks and “we fear that Afghanistan will retaliate against Pakistan through terrorist networks in Punjab and Sindh as well.”
Militancy is a growing problem for Pakistan with the number of attacks increasing every year from 2022, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a global monitoring organization.
ACLED data shows that attacks in Pakistan increased almost four-fold to 2,425 in 2025 from 658 in 2022 and during the same period, TTP attacks increased more than seven-fold to 838 from 118.
