Pakistan completely destroyed an Afghan Taliban military compound housing suicide bombers and ammunition in Kandahar.

Satellite imagery shows the Taliban compound reduced to ashes.

Indian Proxy Taliban will never forget the damage 🔥🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/IeAzymwHQd

— Zard si Gana (@ZardSi) September 24, 2026

Target: Sarai Mullah Omar Facility

According to BBC Afghan fact-check analysis of satellite imagery, the targeted facility was Sarai Mullah Omar in Kandahar — the former residence of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, which was used as a CIA base during the Afghan Republic era.

Satellite imagery shows multiple hangars were completely destroyed, with visible flames and smoke rising from the area after the strikes. According to geolocation data released by STRATCOM Bureau, UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter hangars at the former CIA Camp Gecko — now the Afghan Taliban's Kandahar headquarters and governor's residence — were also targeted.

Pakistan Confirms 10 Locations Targeted

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed that Pakistan Air Force and drone strikes hit 10 locations inside Afghanistan under Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, describing them as "precise, calibrated and proportionate." The targets were drone launch and storage infrastructure linked to cross-border attacks on Pakistan.

Tarar stated the strikes were a direct response to eight drones launched from Afghan territory into Pakistani airspace on September 23. Pakistan's air defences detected, tracked, and neutralised all eight — four near the Torkham border and four in the hills near Kohat.

Taliban Response

Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed strikes on Kandahar, Paktia, and Khost provinces, condemning them as "brutal aggression by the Pakistani military regime" and claiming four civilians were killed. The BBC reported that all four deaths occurred in Kandahar.

Taliban spokesman for Khost province, Mustainfir Gulbaz, said targets included Gulan Camp in Gurbaz district, Ismail Khel, and parts of Mandozai, but claimed no casualties occurred, stating the targets were mostly empty houses.

Second Strike in Four Days

This marks Pakistan's second cross-border strike inside Afghanistan in four days. On September 21, Pakistan targeted what it described as militant camps in Kunar and Paktika provinces. Pakistan claimed 28 militants were killed, while UNAMA confirmed at least three civilians — a man, a woman, and a girl — died in Kunar.

The government announced the motorway’s closure earlier this week as it stepped up arrangements to prevent the PTI from marching on Islamabad.

The march was part of the party’s planned nationwide protest to demand the release of its jailed founder, Imran Khan, and mobilise people for the supremacy of the Constitution. The protest was originally planned for Sept 27, but the party has now reportedly deferred it.

Advocate Mian Shafqat Jan, a lawyer of the Supreme Court, filed a petition on Friday against the government’s move to shutdown the M-1 Motorway after he was unable to reach the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to appear in a case due to the closure.

According to the petition, the lawyer was scheduled to appear before the PHC on Sept 24. He managed to enter the motorway from the Islamabad toll plaza at around 7am after facing difficulties but found the route closed at the M-1 Attock Bridge.

The petitioner said he sought information from officials deployed at the site about any written order authorising the closure but was unable to obtain a confirmation.

He contended that closing public routes without a notification, written order or disclosed reasons infringed citizens’ fundamental rights and warranted judicial intervention.

The petition named the federation through the interior and information secretaries, the inspectors general of the National Highways and Motorway Police and Islamabad Police, the National Highway Authority through its chairman, the Islamabad Capital Territory administration through the chief commissioner, and the Punjab government through its home secretary and inspector general of police as respondents.

The petitioner also referred to a recent IHC judgement about the planned PTI protest, arguing that the court had recognised constitutional protections for citizens, including freedom of movement and access to courts.

In its detailed 37-page judgement in the case pertaining to the PTI’s planned protest, the IHC held that any activity resulting in the infringement of citizens’ fundamental rights amounted to a violation of the Constitution. It also observed that the right to peaceful assembly could not be exercised in a manner that infringed the rights of other citizens.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and comprising Justice Muhammad Azam Khan and Justice Muhammad Asif, directed the authorities to ensure that no political party, leader or public office holder occupied roads, highways, interchanges or toll plazas in a manner that obstructed free movement or hindered access to medical and educational facilities.

On the basis of these arguments, Advocate Jan urged the high court in his plea to declare the closure of roads and highways without any notification, written order or disclosed reasons illegal and unconstitutional.

He has also sought directions for the interior secretary, communications secretary and Islamabad chief commissioner to ensure the reopening of blocked routes for emergency traffic, lawyers, litigants, witnesses, sick persons, funeral processions and other emergency services.

According to the National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP), the M-1 has been closed to all traffic in both directions between the Islamabad Toll Plaza and Chhachh Interchange, while the M-14 was closed from Hakla to Kundal. The GT Road was also closed at Attock Khurd.

The government had also decided to close the Islamabad-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway (M14) — also known as the CPEC road — and GT Road.

Security arrangements were also intensified in Attock, with containers and sandbags placed at key bridges and security tightened at major entry and exit points, as authorities prepared for the PTI protest.

The federal government also approved the deployment of Rangers in Islamabad and several districts of Punjab ahead of the PTI’s planned march on the federal capital.

Punjab has already imposed a ban on gatherings across the province for 13 days and prohibited inciting people to “unlawful assembly”. A similar ban under Section 144 has been enforced in Islamabad as well for two months.

Gatherings in the federal capital are also banned under the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Act 2024, which had been rushed through the National Assembly amidst the opposition’s outcry ahead of a PTI gathering.

Meanwhile, Section 144 has also been imposed in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Balochistan.

The Punjab government had also sent a letter to the federal interior ministry requesting mobile and internet services at specific locations in Rawalpindi and Attock to be downgraded or jammed on Sept 27 due to the “expected law and order situation”.

🇵🇰 Pakistan Forces Destroy Afghan Taliban Positions Near the Border

Mateen Thana — Destroyed
Pasta Thana — Destroyed
Almarjan Thana — Destroyed
Sartashan Thana — Direct Hit

30+ Taliban fighters killed, one APC destroyed, and several Taliban personnel fled their posts. pic.twitter.com/J8nMXFVfIW

— Zard si Gana (@ZardSi) September 25, 2026

🎯 Thana Positions Destroyed

According to security sources, Pakistani forces successfully targeted and destroyed several key Afghan Taliban positions, including:

• Mateen Thana — Destroyed

• Pasta Thana — Destroyed

• Almarjan Thana — Destroyed

• Sartashan Thana — Direct Hit

The strikes were carried out under Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, which was launched in response to what officials described as unprovoked aggression by Afghan Taliban forces and their supported militant elements along the Durand Line .

💥 30+ Taliban Fighters Killed, APC Destroyed

Security sources reported that over 30 Afghan Taliban fighters were killed during the fierce engagement, marking one of the most severe border clashes along the Chaman corridor in recent months . One Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) belonging to the Taliban forces was also destroyed with direct fire .

Following the intense retaliatory barrage, several Afghan Taliban personnel abandoned their posts and fled from the border positions, according to security officials .

⚔️ Context: Infiltration Attempt Sparked Clash

The escalation began when Pakistani forces foiled an infiltration attempt by Fitna al-Khawarij militants attempting to cross into the Kurram sector from Afghanistan's Nangarhar and Paktia provinces, allegedly under Afghan Taliban supervision .

After the infiltration attempt was thwarted, Afghan Taliban forces opened indiscriminate fire on Pakistani border posts using heavy weapons, mortars, and other arms. Pakistani forces responded with concentrated artillery and direct strikes targeting Afghan Taliban posts, mortar positions, and defensive fortifications .

📊 Casualty Figures

While Pakistani security sources reported over 30 Taliban fighters killed and one APC destroyed , Afghan authorities have not publicly confirmed these casualty figures. The accounts could not be independently verified as of publication time .

Security sources emphasized that Pakistani forces continue to maintain complete control over the border areas and remain fully alert to respond decisively to any further provocation .

⚡️🇵🇰 Pakistan has launched AIRSTRIKES on 10 locations across Afghanistan, targeting terrorist hideouts and support infrastructure, including drone launch and storage sites linked to attacks on Pakistan.

The strikes targeted facilities in areas under Afghan Taliban control. pic.twitter.com/k2E3G80i97

— Zard si Gana (@ZardSi) September 24, 2026

'Precise, Calibrated and Proportionate'

In a statement posted on X, Tarar said the strikes were conducted under Operation Ghazab lil-Haq and described them as "deliberate, precise, calibrated and proportionate." He stated that the targets were limited to militant infrastructure directly tied to cross-border attacks.

The strikes targeted facilities in areas under Afghan Taliban control, including locations in Kandahar, Paktia, and Khost provinces. According to security sources, the operation destroyed 10 sites comprising terrorist hideouts, drone launch pads, and storage facilities.

Response to Drone Incursions

The airstrikes followed the interception of multiple drones launched from Afghan territory into Pakistani airspace on September 23. According to security officials, Pakistan's air defences detected, tracked, and neutralised eight drones — four near the Torkham border and four in the hills near Kohat.

Minister Tarar stated that the strikes were a direct response to these incursions and warned that "any further provocation will invite a resolute response."

Taliban Denies Responsibility, Claims Civilian Casualties

Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that the group launched drones toward Pakistan and condemned the strikes as a "flagrant violation" of Afghan sovereignty. He claimed that four civilians were killed in the bombing across Kandahar, Paktia, and Khost provinces, and vowed an "appropriate response."

A resident of Kandahar city told AFP he heard the sound of a jet followed by a large explosion and saw fire in the city centre. Kandahar is the spiritual heartland of the Taliban movement and the seat of its supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Second Strike in Four Days

This marks the second Pakistani airstrike inside Afghanistan in four days. On September 21, Pakistan targeted what it described as militant camps and suicide-bomb training facilities in eastern Afghanistan, claiming 28 militants were killed. That operation came in the wake of a suicide attack on the Kohat Police Lines mosque, which killed at least 16 people, including five police officers.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of harbouring and facilitating the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied groups. Kabul denies these allegations and has summoned Pakistan's envoy in protest.

Regional Implications

The strikes risk further destabilising already fragile relations between Islamabad and Kabul. Talks between the two sides in Doha reportedly failed to produce results, with Taliban officials saying Pakistan demanded the Taliban take responsibility for Pakistan's internal security — a demand Kabul rejected.

In the eyes of Rawalpindi, every single tear has become the Nullah Lai

اکھ دی راولپنڈی دے وِچ اکّ اکّ اتھرو نالہ لئی اے

—Master Altaf Bahrawana, Punjabi poet

It was 6:30am on the first of September in Gawalmandi and Shazia’s mother was making breakfast in the courtyard. Her feet were immersed, her clothes were soaked but she persisted with the fire even though the wood was so damp it barely responded. Shazia, 40, was sitting at the doorway, keeping one eye on the drainage pipe that opened into Nullah Lai. Their house sat on the banks of this tributary of the Soan River that functions more like a stormwater drain for Rawalpindi. Shazia kept her other eye on the tree, which served as a marker for rising water levels as it rained.

They and the other families by the banks had been hoping it would not get bad. But sure enough, the water inched up past the mark (nishani) to rise over 20 feet, and the nullah started to top its banks and begin pooling into the houses.

“Shazia, bachyan nu utte chuk ke lai ja,” her mother hollered. Take the children upstairs now.

They moved the children to the roof first, then the parents, and then the precious mattresses, charpai and, most importantly, the fridge.

Shazia and her family have lived here for six decades, so they know the nullah’s moods, its sounds, and the signs by which it warns them. They are also familiar with the accompanying drumbeat in their veins as adrenaline and anxiety flood their bodies in response to the monsoon.

Nullah Lai drains a catchment of about 235 square kilometres, roughly three-fifths of it in Islamabad, before cutting through Rawalpindi’s most crowded neighbourhoods on its way to the Soan River. A funding proposal to the UN’s Adaptation Fund counted 19 floods in the nullah over 59 years and estimated that some 400,000 people in the city suffer every year.

The worst came on July 23, 2001, when 620mm fell on the twin cities in roughly half a day. A study of that disaster put the death toll at 74 (64 of them in Rawalpindi), and found that nine in ten surveyed households had lost property, often down to their pots and pans.

But the record cannot show what decades of living beside Nullah Lai have taught these women: not simply how to survive a flood, but how to make a life around its return.

Master Altaf’s verse, ‘In the eyes of Rawalpindi, every single tear has become the Nullah Lai’ reads like reportage. It is the story of the lives of the women of Gawalmandi and Arya Mohallah, repeated year after year and resurrecting their coping mechanisms each late summer.

From the roof, Shazia’s mind turned to a neighbour who was pregnant and alone. She called out but got no answer. So she went down, reached the woman, helped her to safety and stayed with her until the water fell.

When it finally did, there was no drinking water and nothing to eat. The wood was soaked, the open-air stove useless, everything covered in muck. The mattresses were left to dry on the roof and the family came downstairs to begin the clean-up on empty stomachs. Eventually, food and water was sent by the youngest daughter from her home.

As always, the floodwater brought its own cargo. Snakes are common, and one night Shazia’s mother felt something crawling on her back. She swatted it and found a large centipede. “This is not the first time we have seen this,” Shazia says. “I have been seeing it since I was young.”

Then she offers something that sounds less a complaint and more a law of physics: “When the water has to come, it comes. It makes its own way. No one can stop it.”

Nullah Lai knows the address

Rukhsana, 58, came to Gawalmandi as a bride. She measures the floods against one that predates her own memory, a flood her in-laws said had not been matched in two decades. Across the water in Arya Mohallah, Ambreen, 49, who also moved there after her marriage, counts the floods by year: 2001, then 2010. “And after that, we saw even heavier rains,” she says. Each flood settles on top of the last, bigger than before.

Ambreen laughs when she recalls what people tell them: “Log humain kehte hain…people say we have encroached on the Lai. We tell them we have lived here since the time of our forefathers. We and the Lai go back a long time, our bond old as time. Lai was here before, during the time of our fathers and forefathers but now it seems to have memorized our address year after year, it turns up at our door, as if to pay respect to our elders at their graves.”

The nullah has become part of their history. “Ab hum Lai ki auratein hain,” she says. We are now the women of Lai.

Ready before the rain

Pre-monsoon prep for the people living around Lai is in place before any official warning is issued.

“During the last flood, the deep freezer was too heavy to carry upstairs,” explains Nusrat, who is not spared damage even though she lives a kilometre away. “So this year we women decided to find a solution and raised it on the bricks.”

Sewage flows back into kitchen drains and toilets when their exits are flooded. The solution is to keep toilets covered. At the doors, barricades are improvised with wooden planks and sandbags. “We have to create barriers because there isn’t any proper system,” Nusrat says. When the rain is at its heaviest, the women work the drains by hand. “We try to make a path for the water to move out. When we use the wiper, the dirt moves with the water towards the drains. That helps a little.” Houses often stock up on good wipers, mops and toilet-cleaning acid as the season approaches.

The women prepare for the possibility that staying home will no longer be safe. Neighbours alert one another when levels turn critical, while families call relatives to higher ground if they need to leave. For Saima, 23, of Arya Mohallah, one precaution proved especially important. “Thank God I had kept a bag with sanitary pads, underwear, a chaddar and a spare shalwar kameez. Otherwise, it would have been very difficult because I had my period the day before. Our house was flooded with 12 feet of water.”

Rukhsana cuts straight to the heart of the matter: “Things can be replaced. But a life lost cannot be.” Ambereen’s circle of care extends even further. In every flood, before saving her belongings, she carries her birds and cats to safety. “Now we don’t panic as much,” Shazia says, “because we know what work has to be done.”

A solidarity has developed especially between the women. “When floods like this happen, everyone becomes one,” Shazia says. “People check on each other. They ask, ‘Is everything okay? Do you need anything?”

Managing life next to a nullah that floods is labour, even if no one calls it that. The women joke that the flood doesn’t wait for a time when the men would be at home. Inevitably it’s the women who are at home when it happens and even when the waters recede. They are the ones cleaning out the diapers, waste, sanitary pads, and rubbish. “I took a shower today, after five days,” says Shazia. “And I saw bruises and marks all over my body. Something hit me here, something else hit me there.”

Power and gas supplies take days to return. Ambereen’s household spent four days without electricity after its meter was damaged.

In Master Altaf’s verse, the eye is where the flood gathers. In Rukhsana’s answer, it is also where the strength to face it is found.

Why the water keeps coming

In the opinion of town planner Abida Parveen of Shehersaaz there is no single fix here, least of all widening the drain which can’t solve a problem built into an entire catchment. “Open and permeable land has been replaced by roads, rooftops, concrete surfaces and other impervious areas,” she says. “Even if we widen the channel, we are still dealing with a much larger and faster flow of stormwater entering the system.”

Rain that runs off the capital’s roads and rooftops ends up at the doorsteps of Gawalmandi. The channel carries more than rain: about 600 cusecs of sewage flow into it every day, which is why what comes up through Nusrat’s kitchen pipe is never just water but contamination, the possibility of disease, both acute and chronic.

That detail is where the story refuses a simple villain. Officials point to encroachments and to garbage and debris dumped into the channel, and they are not entirely wrong: residents of some neighbourhoods along the banks have been photographed dumping waste there in defiance of bans. But Parveen cautions against letting that diagnosis harden into a verdict on the people who live there.

“Calling a settlement an encroachment may describe its legal status, but it does not automatically solve the housing problem of the people living there,” she says. “The objective should not be simply to remove people from the nullah. The objective should be to reduce flood risk while ensuring that vulnerable households are not made homeless or pushed into another unsafe settlement.”

Danyal Chaudhry, the member of the National Assembly for NA-57, does not dispute that response has outrun prevention. He calls for a shift “from a purely reactive approach — responding after water levels rise — to a preventive approach based on risk mapping, preparedness and timely evacuation.” For him women should not only be treated as beneficiaries of disaster-response programmes; they should also be partners in designing them. “Their experience at the household and community level can significantly improve the effectiveness of official preparedness plans.”

While it sounds like the right diagnosis, for now it is also a description of something that has not yet happened. In the women’s own accounts, the early-warning system is a marked tree; the relief operation is a relative arriving with food and water; the evacuation plan is a bag packed by the door.

The fear that stays

Shazia’s mother no longer sleeps properly when it rains. She lies down, drifts off, and just as sleep begins to take hold, wakes and reaches for the floor to check if it is wet. Nusrat copes differently, “Haha, I have gone crazy, I keep washing the dishes again and again.”

For Saima, the fear is tied to the uncertainty of what might happen to the house and the family. “Thunder, the sound of water hitting the pavement grips me with fear…I can’t help but tremble…because the memories come flooding back, the anxiety to face it all once again…it’s like life imprisonment.“

Rukhsana’s answer suggests an anxiety that has found a home in the marrow: “We stay scared and alert. That fear has never really left us.” For these women, eco-anxiety is not an abstract fear of a distant climate future.

Where the tears meet the Lai

The harder question is whether resilience is simply the name given to the labour people perform when the systems fail them. “There isn’t any proper arrangement to stop it,” says Ambereen. “There isn’t really a solution. If the water rises, it will come inside anyway, no matter what we do.” What they ask for is smaller than an expressway, and harder to argue with. “How can we make ourselves safe when we cannot afford the cost?” she asks. “If the government wants us to move, then give us money or land and let us build somewhere safe.”

When the next heavy rain comes, the sequence will begin again in Gawalmandi and Arya Mohallah: the tree, the dash for higher ground, the children first and the mattresses after them, the toilets covered, the bag sent upstairs, the cleaning begun before the smell has settled.

“We know this can happen again,” Shazia says. “We have learned how to deal with it because we have been facing it for years. We carry on. Life goes on.”

All photos by authors