JNN 2nd July 2026 : Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan’s military said on Wednesday it shot down four drones launched by the Afghan Taliban into Balochistan 

7hours after Afghanistan’s defence ministry claimed its air force had struck what it called ISIL (ISIS) “centres” in Balochistan’s Pishin district and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the drones were detected immediately after crossing the border and were neutralised through “sophisticated countermeasures”, describing the launch as part of the Afghan Taliban’s “patronisation and support of terrorist outfits”.
Kabul’s defence ministry said separately that its strikes targeted a centre in Pishin district, allegedly used to plan “subversive activities and attacks in Afghanistan”, adding that no civilians were harmed.
Earlier, on June 27, Terrorist attacked a paramilitary compound in Karachi, killing 5 personnel. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter faction of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility, and the suspect captured alive was identified as an Afghan national. Pakistan responded on June 29 with strikes in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces, claiming 25 fighters were killed. The Taliban government said 36 civilians died.
Afghanistan’s air force has limited attack capabilities, having no fighter or bomber planes. In comparison, Pakistan has a modern air force that flies American F-16 fighter jets and Chinese stealth fighters.
The drone strikes mark the latest in an escalating back-and-forth of military strikes between Afghan and Pakistani territory since October 2025.
Behind those tensions are numbers that Pakistani officials say they cannot ignore. The Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) recorded 699 “terrorist” attacks across the country in 2025, a 34 percent increase from the previous year, with at least 1,034 people killed.
Meanwhile, the United States-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project has documented at least a dozen drone launches into Pakistani territory since February.
Still, Pakistani officials told Our Correspondent on condition of anonymity that for now, they plan to pursue what they described as a strategy of controlled escalation: responding forcefully to armed attacks from non-state groups while being more selective about how to retaliate against the Afghan Taliban government strikes.
Pakistan declared “open war” on February 27 and launched Operation Ghazab-lil-Haq (Wrath for Justice) after Taliban forces attacked Pakistani border posts, themselves a response to earlier Pakistani strikes on armed rebel camps in eastern Afghanistan.
By March, a Pakistani strike on a rehabilitation centre near Kabul had killed more than 100 people, according to independent estimates.
Last year, Qatari and Turkish mediation produced an October ceasefire that briefly held before follow-up talks in Istanbul collapsed twice.
Chinese-mediated talks in Urumqi in April this year led to a measurable drop in Pakistani air strikes, with Taliban officials reportedly prepared to offer written guarantees against the TTP. However, the lull lasted only about two months before tensions resurfaced in June.
“The latest escalation is a continuation of skirmishes that have been regularly observed over the past two years,” said Fahad Nabeel, head of the Islamabad-based consultancy Geopolitical Insights.
“Pakistani aerial strikes in Afghanistan have become reactionary in nature, without any notable change in the frequency of militant attacks. Afghan Taliban officials, for their part, have failed to take any notable action to ensure Afghanistan does not serve as a launching pad for attacks in Pakistan,” the analyst told JNN

Afghanistan’s Taliban says they have launched air strikes on Pakistani territory, as Islamabad said its forces had intercepted four rudimentary drones in the southern province of Balochistan.
Pakistan’s military said on Wednesday that Afghan Taliban forces had “launched four rudimentary drones across the border in Balochistan … the hostile aerial platforms were immediately picked up by Pakistan’s robust air defence network”.
“If the Afghan Taliban continue to provoke Pakistan, they would receive a befitting response which would cost them heavily,” it added.
The Afghan defence ministry posted on X that it had carried out “air strikes” in Balochistan and northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that it said caused casualties among members of an ISIL (ISIS) affiliate.
The Taliban’s military does not have fighter jets and lacks a fully functional air force, but it has used small drones in fighting with Pakistan, targeting areas primarily in the border regions.
Pakistan-Afghanistan relations have been fraught since 2021, when the Taliban took power in Kabul. Hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out air attacks inside Afghan territory.
After a deadly weekend attack in Karachi, Pakistan carried out attacks in eastern Afghanistan that killed dozens of people. Islamabad said it targeted fighters, but the Afghan government said there were at least 36 civilian casualties.
The months of conflict centre around Islamabad’s accusations that the Taliban government shelters armed groups behind attacks in Pakistan, particularly the Pakistan Taliban (known by the acronym TTP), which has waged a violent campaign against Pakistan for years.
Afghan officials deny the allegations and say that Pakistan harbours hostile groups and does not respect its sovereignty.