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Pakistan rejects Afghan Taliban claim of strikes in KP, Balochistan

Pakistan's information ministry called Afghan Taliban claims of air strikes on Daesh hideouts false, saying one drone entered and was shot down.

News analysis
Map showing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
CONTEXT IMAGE A map of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is a contextual graphic and does not depict the 18–19 June 2026 incidents. Image: Ytpks896, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

What happened

Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Friday that its air force had struck hideouts of Islamist militants in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces overnight, a claim Pakistan’s information ministry rejected as “false, as usual”.

In a post on X, the Afghan defence ministry said the targets in the two border provinces had been used to plan and organise attacks against Afghanistan, and that “all pre-designated high-value targets were successfully struck”. It did not specify how the operation was carried out.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting responded that the Afghan Taliban regime had claimed to have targeted alleged Daesh Khorasan camps in the border areas using “rudimentary drones”, and that the claims did not reflect events on the ground. It said one such drone entered Pakistani airspace near Shinko in Khyber district and was “immediately identified and neutralised by the alert air defence system of the Pakistan Air Force”.

Why it matters

The exchange is the latest in a months-long confrontation that escalated sharply after late February 2026 and has killed hundreds on both sides. Islamabad accuses Kabul of sheltering armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, that carry out attacks in Pakistan’s northwest and Balochistan. Kabul denies the allegation and says militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem.

The claims came about a week after Pakistan said its own “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts along the Afghan border had killed 26 militants. The Afghan Taliban administration said those Pakistani strikes killed at least 13 people, including 11 children, and injured 14. Both sides’ casualty and target claims could not be independently verified.

Sources & reporting notes

This is a summary of published reporting, not independent reporting. Attributions and casualty figures are as stated by the cited parties. Sources were reviewed on 2026-06-19.

  1. Radio Pakistan — "MoIB rejects Taliban claims of drone strikes in KP, Balochistan"19 June 2026 · The Information Ministry's rejection, the accusation that militant camps operate from Afghan territory and the downed drone near Shinko.
  2. Arab News Pakistan — "Pakistan denies Afghan claim of strikes on Daesh hideouts, says intercepted one drone"19 June 2026 · The Afghan defence ministry's X post, the two provinces named and Pakistan's account of the intercepted drone.
  3. Dawn — "'Rudimentary' Afghan drones shot down in KP, Balochistan"20 June 2026 · Official accounts of drones downed in Qila Abdullah and Chagai and the context of Pakistan's earlier strikes.
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