MT Desk: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned the Taliban regime on Wednesday that Islamabad would strike “deep into Afghanistan” if Afghan soil was used to launch terror attacks on Pakistan.

In a pre-dawn announcement, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the latest round of talks between the two countries in Turkiye, which aimed to address cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghan soil, “failed to bring about any workable solution”. “If their territory is used and they violate our territory, then, if we need to go deep into Afghanistan to retaliate, we surely will,” he added.The defence minister said Afghanistan neither “fulfils the definition of a state” nor did the interim administration consider it so. “They are benefiting financially by being the rulers.”

Asked whether the Afghan Taliban were taking their country towards a similar situation as the United States’ military operation in Tora Bora in December 2001, Asif said, “It is definitely a possibility.”

Asif’s latest remarks come hours after he issued a strongly worded warning to the Taliban rulers in Kabul, telling them to test Islamabad’s resolve at their “own peril and doom” if they wished to do so. “We have borne your treachery and mockery for too long, but no more. Any terrorist attack or any suicide bombing inside Pakistan shall give you the bitter taste of such misadventures. Be rest assured and test our resolve and capabilities, if you wish so, at your own peril and doom,” Asif posted on social media platform X. The defence minister said that Pakistan had indulged in talks to give peace a chance on the request of brotherly countries, which were persistently being beseeched by the rulers in Kabul, however, “venomous statements by certain Afghan officials clearly reflect the devious and splintered mindset of Taliban regime”.

“Let me assure them that Pakistan does not require employing even a fraction of its full arsenal to completely obliterate the Taliban regime and push them back to the caves for hiding. If they wish so, the repeat of the scenes of their rout at Tora Bora, with their tails between the legs, would surely be a spectacle to watch for the people of the region.”