ALBAWABA- Pakistan vowed harsh retaliation against the Afghan Taliban on Wednesday after a roadside bomb killed five soldiers and wounded 14 others in Kurram district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, marking a dangerous escalation along the volatile Durand Line.
The explosion, claimed by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—a militant group Islamabad accuses of operating from Afghan territory, tore through a military convoy near the border just hours after Pakistan declared its peace talks with Kabul a “complete failure.”
The attack has deepened fears of open conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. The blast shatters a fragile truce brokered by Qatar and Turkey on October 19 in Doha, which had paused a week of deadly cross-border clashes involving artillery fire and drone strikes.
That 45-day ceasefire unraveled during four days of follow-up talks in Istanbul ending Tuesday, as mutual accusations of harboring “shadow forces” derailed negotiations.
Islamabad insists the Afghan Taliban regime shelters TTP operatives and allied networks, some allegedly backed by Iran, fueling a 300% surge in militant attacks this year. The violence has displaced thousands and inflamed tensions in border communities already reeling from instability.
In a blistering post on X, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned that Pakistan could “obliterate the Taliban regime” without using its full military strength, invoking the Taliban’s 2001 collapse at Tora Bora.
“We have endured your treachery for too long,” he wrote, vowing a decisive response to any further assaults and mocking Kabul’s claim to be the “graveyard of empires” as a “playground of empires instead.”
The Taliban dismissed Asif’s remarks as “arrogant posturing” and urged restraint to avoid plunging the region into renewed conflict.
With more than 1,000 people killed in border violence so far this year, analysts warn that the standoff could spiral into a wider proxy war, drawing in regional powers and undoing recent de-escalation efforts led by Doha and Ankara.
Qatar has urged both sides to return to mediation, even as Pakistani warplanes staged low-altitude flights along the frontier in a show of force.
