Pakistan Strikes Taliban Bases in Kabul Amid Muttaqi’s India Visit

Pakistan has reportedly unleashed airstrikes on Taliban strongholds in Kabul, Afghanistan, just as the regime's top diplomat, Amir Khan Muttaqi, was extending olive branches to India during his groundbreaking first official visit to New Delhi. The thunderous blasts that echoed through the Afghan capital late Thursday—described by locals as "unknown jets raining fire"—have no confirmed casualties, but Taliban officials swiftly downplayed the chaos, with chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posting on X: "An explosion was heard... but don't worry, it's all good. No harm reported." Behind the scenes, however, intelligence whispers point squarely to Pakistan's air force targeting hideouts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the arch-rival militant group Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring like a venomous guest.

The timing couldn't be more provocative, coinciding with Muttaqi's six-day charm offensive in India—the first high-level Taliban delegation since their 2021 power grab that toppled the U.S.-backed government. Fresh off a stop in Russia, Muttaqi touched down in Delhi amid whispers of a tectonic shift in regional realpolitik, where New Delhi's pragmatic outreach to the Taliban is quietly eroding Pakistan's once-dominant influence in Kabul. During Friday's marquee meeting with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, the Taliban foreign minister pledged unequivocally: "Afghanistan will not allow any group to use our territory against others," a pointed assurance aimed at assuaging India's long-standing fears of Afghan soil being weaponized by anti-India terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed. Jaishankar, in turn, hailed the visit as a "key step in advancing ties," announcing India's intent to fully reopen its Kabul embassy—shuttered since the Taliban's lightning takeover—forcing the recall of diplomats in a haze of uncertainty.

But the Kabul detonations cast a long, ominous shadow over the Delhi diplomacy, fueling speculation that Islamabad—fuming over the Taliban's perceived pivot toward its arch-rival—is lashing out to remind Kabul of its precarious perch. Pakistan's military, meanwhile, trumpeted a parallel victory on Friday: security forces had slain 30 TTP militants in a series of ground raids in the restive Orakzai district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, avenging an October 7 ambush that claimed 11 soldiers' lives in a hail of gunfire near the porous Afghan frontier. Labeling the dead as "Khwarij"—Pakistan's derogatory slur for militants they claim are propped up by Indian intelligence—the army crowed: "These operations have brought the perpetrators to justice." Yet, the cross-border strikes in Kabul, if confirmed, mark a dangerous new frontier in the tit-for-tat shadow war, echoing Pakistan's 2024 incursions that drew Taliban vows of retaliation and expelled thousands of Afghan refugees in a fit of pique.

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For Pakistan, rattled by the Taliban's warming to India—a nation accused by Islamabad of stoking TTP flames from afar—these strikes serve as a not-so-subtle message: don't cozy up to Delhi at our expense. Afghan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif's fiery National Assembly speech hours earlier thundered, "Enough is enough—terrorism from Afghan soil is intolerable," a barely veiled broadside at Kabul's alleged complicity. Analysts see the hand of deeper geopolitical chess: India's $3 billion in pre-Taliban aid to Afghanistan, now funneled through humanitarian channels, positions New Delhi as a counterweight to China's Belt and Road ambitions and Pakistan's CPEC lifeline, all while Islamabad grapples with a TTP resurgence that's claimed over 1,000 lives in 2025 alone, per conflict trackers.

Muttaqi, undeterred by the distant rumbles, doubled down on goodwill in Delhi, praising India as a "close friend" and first responder to Afghanistan's devastating recent earthquake, while floating ideas for a consultative mechanism to boost trade, people-to-people ties, and mutual security. "This visit will increase understanding between our countries," he beamed, eyes on potential business conclaves with Indian tycoons. Yet, as the Taliban delegation eyes chats with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, the specter of Kabul's explosions looms large—a stark reminder that in this zero-sum game of alliances, one nation's diplomatic thaw is another's declaration of war.

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