The intensifying onslaught by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) raises questions that cut deeper than insurgency alone. Over 600 attacks in 2025, a 20% spike from 2024 per ACLED data, signal not just a resurgent TTP but a potential geopolitical calculation.
Imagine of a broader plan to sever Pakistan’s Pashtun-dominated KPK. That also opens up G-B and isolates the residual Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) as a vulnerable, thin strip of wasteland. Behind all the chaos: Taliban incursions, PAF bombings, TTP suicide attacks, media sound-bytes, and social media videos, there are some subtle threads. Like Operation Sindoor and the warming of India’s ties with the Taliban. Could they hint at a calculated encirclement?
So, the exciting thought that underlines this Diwali is whether the TTP’s onslaught masks a strategic reconfiguration of South Asia’s borders.
TTP’s Escalation of Insurgency, or State-Building?
The TTP’s 2025 offensive is methodical and relentless. Aggregated from multiple sources like The Guardian, FDD, Wikipedia, TOI, and ACLED, the numbers suggest that over 311 Pakistani troops and 73 policemen have been killed in KPK since January, with attacks targeting security personnels specifically. The group’s emir, Noor Wali Mehsud, survived a Pakistani airstrike in Kabul on October 9, 2025, and retaliated with cross-border raids. UN reports confirm Afghan Taliban support is now fuelling a force of an estimated at 8,000 fighters.
Beyond violence, the TTP is embedding itself in KPK’s tribal fabric. They levy taxes, and are gunning for Sharia law, per local intelligence. This is an ambition beyond disruption: a proto-state in Pakistan’s northwest.
Historically, KPK is NOT Pakistan
KPK’s Pashtun-majority regions have remained tied to Afghanistan via shared ethnicity since medieval times. The Durand Line was drawn forcefully to create some room for the new garrison-state called Pakistan. Be that as it may, Pakistan — since its creation — has been laser focussed on exploiting the Bengalis, the Baluchs, the Baltis, the Sindhis, to fuel their Punjabi ambitions. The Pashtuns have been no exception to that. The TTP movement in the region highlights just that: economic neglect, poverty, minimal political representation… Pakistani drone strikes on hapless tribals have only served to augment that.
The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement’s 2024 jirga in Bajaur demanded autonomy, echoing 1947’s Bannu Resolution for Pashtun self-determination. If KPK were to detach tomorrow, the illusion of Pakistan’s territorial cohesion would unravel. Balochistan’s ongoing rebellion and Sindh’s unrest could accelerate this fragmentation, leaving Punjab isolated.
The Exposed Frontier
The strategic implications are stark. A truncated Pakistan with no access to warm water ports becomes a geopolitical non-entity. Remember, the USA needs Pakistan only as long as it connects the Arabian Sea to Central Asia. A fractured KPK would leave G-B, Pakistan’s strategic northern outpost isolated. There is a significant local unrest there already. Shia protests, Balti demands for autonomy, and chants of “Will Merge With India”, are signals of the same.
At New Delhi’s end Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s statements has reaffirmed India’s intent to reclaim G-B, as an inherent part of undivided Jammu and Kashmir. With Pakistan’s military stretched thin in KPK, G-B’s defences could weaken. A destabilized KPK, sitting just beside an impatient G-B, could be a goldmine of an opportunity.
India’s Strategic Signal
Viewed through this lens, Operation Sindoor could well have been a calculated escalation. Described as a “new doctrine” by External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, Sindoor crippled the Pakistani air defences and signalled zero tolerance beyond a threshold. The timing (preceding the BLA attacks and the recent TTP’s surge), is interesting. Was Sindoor a signal towards the initiation of something?
Consider the fact of India’s deepening engagement with Afghanistan. On October 10, 2025, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi visited New Delhi, marking a high-level diplomatic thaw. India upgraded its Kabul mission to embassy status, resumed humanitarian aid, and expanded Chabahar port operations for Afghan trade. Muttaqi condemned the Pahalgam attack and pledged against anti-India terror interests. This bonhomie coincides with strained Pakistan-Afghan ties, marked by refugee expulsions and border clashes.
No direct evidence; but the strategic alliance, development of Indo-Afghan goodwill, the progressive weakening of Pakistan’s north-southwest, the clear and present fact of Indian missiles along Pakistani east, all fit wonderfully well as far as the Asian Playbook is concerned. An Asian Playbook that, for its own sake, needs to stop Pakistan from being a Western Trojan Horse in Arabian Sea.
A Calculated Unravelling?
If KPK slips from Pakistan’s grasp, G-B becomes an incredibly-difficult-to-hold bastion in the Pakistani north. The region, with its geographic links to KPK and the Wakhan Corridor, then witnesses a significant broadening of the Wakhan. And not only that, but it also remains open to an Indian decision. It would be good to remember here that Pakistan still hasn’t officially integrated G-B as a part of its territory.
A TTP-driven collapse in KPK has the potential to reshape the subcontinent. The scale and the timing make it extremely interesting and design-rich in its appearance. Here is hoping that as the South Asian end of the Greater Game unravels, newer alliances (along the lines of RIC) get stronger, and the new horizon promises stability in the entire Asian Heartland!
Happy Diwali folks.
