Pakistan says Afghan nationals carried out twin suicide attacks as tensions with Kabul deepen

# Pakistan says Afghan nationals carried out twin suicide attacks as tensions with Kabul deepen

Pakistan’s interior minister said on the event date, November 13, 2025, that Afghan nationals carried out two fatal suicide attacks this week, a claim that adds fresh pressure to already strained relations between Islamabad and Kabul.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said Afghan citizens were involved in both bombings: one outside a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday and another at an army-run cadet college near the Afghan border on Monday. The Islamabad blast killed 12 people and wounded 27 others, while the attack on Cadet College Wana in South Waziristan left three soldiers dead after a suicide bomber and four other militants tried to storm the facility.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said security forces killed all five attackers in the cadet college assault and safely rescued more than 600 people, including 525 cadets, teachers and staff. Tarar said the attackers appeared to be attempting a repeat of the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, one of Pakistan’s deadliest militant attacks.

Authorities said the cadet college attack was planned and directed from Afghanistan and that the attackers used weapons supplied from there. Pakistan also said the raid was orchestrated by a militant identified only as Zahid with approval from the TTP’s chief, Noor Wali Mehsud. The ministry further claimed the weapons were American-made and brought from Afghanistan.

Those claims are significant because Pakistan has long accused the Afghan Taliban of sheltering Pakistani Taliban leaders and fighters, an allegation Kabul denies. The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, has distanced itself from the latest attacks and said it was not behind them. A breakaway faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, initially claimed responsibility for the Islamabad bombing before one of its commanders retracted the statement.

The attacks came amid a fragile security environment and faltering diplomatic efforts. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered renewed talks to Afghanistan’s Taliban government after peace negotiations in Istanbul collapsed last week. Pakistan has said it wants Kabul to prevent militants from using Afghan soil to stage attacks inside Pakistan.

The tensions are layered on top of cross-border clashes that followed Afghan accusations of Pakistani drone strikes on October 9, 2025. Qatar brokered a ceasefire on October 19, but subsequent rounds of talks in Istanbul failed to produce written assurances that militants would not use Afghan territory against Pakistan.

The capital had largely been considered safer than Pakistan’s conflict-hit northwest before the Islamabad blast. The back-to-back attacks now put renewed focus on militant mobility, border security and the political cost of Pakistan’s stalled negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

The event date is November 13, 2025.