The Taliban regime’s latest claims, four killed and 70 wounded, including students, women and children, in Pakistani mortar and rocket strikes on Kunar province, follow a now-familiar script. Reuters reported the accusations on 27 April 2026, complete with inflammatory language from Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat branding Pakistan’s actions “unforgivable war crimes.” Pakistan’s information ministry has already dismissed this as “continuous propaganda.” The pattern is clear, and it is time the world stops falling for it.
Pakistan is not the aggressor. It is a responsible state utilizing its sovereign right to defend itself against the terrorist networks which have been purposefully allowed to operate out of Afghanistan by the Taliban regime. Pakistan has been providing specific information regarding the activities of terror groups, such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as Fitnah-Al-Khawarij, and their franchises operating out of Kunar and Nangarhar and other frontier regions of Afghanistan as a base to conduct strikes within Pakistan for many years. The Taliban response has always been one of denial, distraction (“Pakistan’s internal affair”) and an elaborate campaign of misinformation, seeking to reverse the victim image.
Look at the comparisons. India has repeatedly created or used such high-profile incidents as the Pahalgam one in 2025 and the Pulwama in 2019, for instance, to portray Pakistan as an eternal antagonist. Right from the beginning, India immediately pinned the blame on Pakistan, but there is never any independent evidence to prove this claim. Using such incidents, India has launched attacks against Pakistan through airstrikes, isolationist policies, and propaganda in the world media to make Pakistan appear as a state that sponsors terrorist organizations. Such instances include the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the 2008 Mumbai attack, as well as the Uri in 2016. Each of these instances has had the same pattern; immediately blaming Pakistan, making use of civilian victims, and never allowing any rebuttals.
The Taliban regime has studied this playbook closely and is now executing it with alarming precision. After the March 2026 strike on what Pakistan identified as terrorist support infrastructure in Kabul, the Taliban first claimed 400 dead at a “drug rehabilitation centre.” Independent verification by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan revised the figure dramatically downward. Yet the propaganda had already done its job, headlines across the globe, emergency sessions, and fresh calls for Pakistan to “show restraint.” The current Kunar episode repeats the formula almost verbatim, target an area known to host terror infrastructure, wait for Pakistani response, then flood social media and friendly outlets with unverified images of civilian victims, universities and children. The language is identical, “war crimes,” “innocent civilians,” “educational institutions deliberately hit.” It is designed not to inform, but to manufacture global sympathy and diplomatic cover while the FAK continues to bleed Pakistan.
They deny the existence of FAK camps on their territory, even as Pakistani intelligence has repeatedly shared coordinates, intercepts and evidence of cross-border movement. When Islamabad acts with precision, as it has always declared in advance and taken full ownership of, the Taliban regime weaponizes the inevitable fog of conflict to cry victim. It is the same tactic India perfected, create the incident, try to control the narrative, and let the international community do the rest.
Pakistan’s patience has been extraordinary. It has lost tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in the war on terror. It has endured decades of Indian-sponsored hybrid threats in Balochistan and Karachi, and now faces a resurgent FAK enjoying safe haven across the border. Yet every time Islamabad responds to an imminent threat, the global reflex is to demand “de-escalation” from Pakistan while ignoring the root cause, the Taliban regime’s refusal, or inability, to fulfill the most basic obligation of any government, which is to prevent its territory from being used against a neighbor.
Even China, which mediated the recent Urumqi talks, understands the problem originates from Afghan soil. Skirmishes have decreased since those talks precisely because Pakistan demonstrated restraint, but restraint has limits when your cities continue to bleed.
The international community must stop treating Taliban propaganda as credible journalism. It must stop equating a democratic state defending its borders with a regime that harbors global terrorists, suppresses its own people, and now imports India’s false-flag propaganda model to shield its failures. True peace will come only when Kabul stops playing victim and starts acting like a responsible neighbor, by shutting down FAK sanctuaries, handing over wanted terrorists, and ending the cross-border pipeline of death.
Author
