Pakistani forces shoot down 8 drones near border region launched by Afghan Taliban

The armed forces on Wednesday shot down eight drones launched by the Afghan Taliban after they entered Pakistani airspace near the Torkham border and Kohat, security officials said.

They added that the drones were intercepted by the air defence systems, which they described as "active and vigilant.”

The armed forces and the Pakistan Air Force professionally thwarted the Afghan Taliban regime’s cowardly attempt to target public areas, security sources said.

They said that four of the eight drones were shot down in areas adjacent to the Torkham border, while the remaining four were downed near Kohat.

Earlier, security sources said two "rudimentary” drones had been brought down using "soft skill” methods about seven kilometres from Kohat city. They said the armed forces’ air defence systems remained on round-the-clock alert and were maintaining vigilance against "all threats from Kharjistan”.

"This incursion serves as yet another proof of the Afghan Taliban regime’s direct support and patronage of terrorists,” security sources said.

Later, security sources said the wreckage of the destroyed drones was being recovered. Last night’s exchange of fire in Kurram sector and the drone incursion "demonstrated the state of the Afghan Taliban’s panic and disarray,” security sources added.

The development comes two days after Pakistan, in response to recent terrorist attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), conducted "calibrated” airstrikes in the border region with Afghanistan against terrorist hideouts and safe havens of terrorist organisations.

A statement from the information ministry on Monday said that over 28 terrorists were eliminated in the strikes. "It is a matter of grave concern that Afghanistan continues to remain a hub of terrorism,” it said at the time, specifying that the "threat to Pakistan emanates from Afghanistan”.

Before the airstrikes, security forces conducted a "well-planned intelligence-based ground operation” on September 20 against a group of terrorists in KP’s Kohat and Hangu districts, the ministry said. Nine terrorists were eliminated in the engagement.

 Earlier during the day, local officials said that Afghanistan's Taliban forces shelled Pakistani border posts overnight after Pakistani troops foiled what they described as a cross-border infiltration attempt by militants.

The spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied any attacks by the Afghan Taliban forces.

The conflicting statements came just days after Pakistani fighter jets struck sites in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad said were militant hideouts, an escalation between Kabul and Islamabad that threatens mediation efforts by regional powers.

According to four local Pakistani officials, the militants' infiltration attempt focused on areas near Afghan border posts in Paktia and Nangarhar provinces, allegedly with support from the Afghan Taliban forces.

The officials referred to the militants as Fitna Al Khawarij, a term Islamabad uses for the Pakistani Taliban, a group that is separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of allowing militants to operate from its territory and carry out attacks across the border, an accusation that Kabul denies.

On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed concern about what he said was the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan.