Written by: Asadullah Tareen
After an explosion occurred at a restaurant in Shahr-e Now, Kabul, a group called Freedom Front issued a statement about it. This statement was also consistent with Pakistan’s official stances in terms of language, concept, and politics, and this consistency was very significant. This proxy front claimed, just like Pakistan, that the Afghan government was neither capable nor willing to provide security and that Afghanistan had become a breeding ground for “irresponsible militants.” This is a claim that Islamabad has been repeating for years, but it is now also being echoed by some opposition groups within the Afghan government.
The question is, if Afghanistan is truly the source of insecurity in the region, then why do security figures, real events, and local evidence say something else?
If we examine the matter based on numbers and facts instead of emotional statements, the matter changes completely. Only in the years 2024 and 2025 has Pakistan experienced an unprecedented increase in bloody armed attacks. As a result of hundreds of attacks, thousands of soldiers and members of the military regime have been killed and wounded. The most affected region is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which are under the direct control of Pakistan’s security agencies.
This reality is a practical refutation of the claim that Pakistan’s insecurity is solely exported from Afghanistan. It is important that the Pakistani regime itself has claimed to have arrested leaders of armed groups like ISIS within its own territory on several occasions. If the source of insecurity were external, how would these arrests be justified? Because the centers of irresponsible armed groups are in Pakistan.
The statement by the Freedom Fr6 and Pakistan’s stance confirm each other; both are trying to place the burden of regional insecurity on Afghanistan, but the data, geography, and events do not support this narrative. This stance is not analytical but political; it is also not real but propagandistic.
The issue of security can not be a means of hiding slogans, contracts, and failures. This is a technical, numerical, and objective discussion. A sound analysis would consider the number of attacks, the level of casualties, the geographical reality, and the practical control of states, rather than writing a fictional and propagandistic statement to cover up Pakistan’s failures.
The region is plagued by insecurity, but the heaviest burden of it is on Pakistan’s today. Afghanistan and every other country in the world are not absolutely safe, but calling it a haven for “irresponsible armed groups” is at odds with reality. This fact is not changed by the repeated statements of either Pakistan or the Freedom Front.
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