KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – At least 15 people, including 12 soldiers, two police officers, and a former Forest Department official, were killed after militants attacked a joint security checkpoint in Pakistan’s northwestern Tank district early Friday, according to the Pakistani military.
Security forces said they killed 12 attackers during the ensuing clash.
In a statement, the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said the assailants attempted to overrun the checkpoint but were repelled by security personnel.
After failing to breach the post, the attackers rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the perimeter wall, triggering a powerful explosion that severely damaged the checkpoint’s infrastructure and caused multiple fatalities.
The attack comes amid a recent surge in militant violence in Pakistan, particularly in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, where insurgents have increasingly used vehicle-borne explosive attacks against security installations. Pakistani authorities say operations are continuing in the area to clear any remaining militants.
The Pakistani military blamed the assault on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), referring to the group as “Fitna al Khawarij”—the term Islamabad uses for the banned militant organization.
Militant violence has surged across Pakistan in recent years, with the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces — both bordering Afghanistan — seeing the highest number of attacks. The TTP and Baloch separatist groups have stepped up attacks on security forces and state installations.
Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban authorities of harbouring TTP fighters and allowing them to use Afghan territory to plan and launch cross-border attacks. The Taliban rejects these allegations, maintaining that Pakistan’s security challenges are an internal issue and that no such groups operate from Afghan soil.
Tensions between Islamabad and Kabul have escalated sharply since late 2025, marked by dozens of border clashes, Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan — including targets in Kabul and Kandahar — and retaliatory actions. The exchanges have resulted in hundreds of casualties on both sides, including civilians.
Meanwhile, the attack comes as Pakistan continues a sweeping campaign against Afghan migrants that began in October 2023, following a sharp deterioration in relations between Islamabad and the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan and a surge in militant violence across the country.
Citing security concerns and the enforcement of immigration laws, Pakistani authorities launched a nationwide drive to expel undocumented foreign nationals, a policy that has overwhelmingly affected Afghan refugees, many of whom had lived in Pakistan for decades after fleeing successive conflicts.
Pakistani officials say around 2.4 million Afghans have either returned voluntarily or been deported since the campaign began, while the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reports that more than 1.15 million Afghans returned from Pakistan in 2025 alone.
More recently, authorities have intensified the crackdown in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, demolishing homes in Afghan settlements such as Mattani near Peshawar, conducting widespread identity checks, and accelerating deportations. Residents told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that many families were given little time to recover their belongings before their homes were destroyed, underscoring the increasingly harsh implementation of Pakistan’s deportation policy.
