Pakistan's security account: cross-border counterterror is legitimate

This position holds that Pakistan's cross-border counterterrorism operations are a legitimate exercise of its right to self-defence. Its advocates speak of terrorist infrastructure, militant hideouts and sanctuaries across the border, name groups such as the TTP and the BLA, and describe some of the militants as Indian-backed.

Outlets grouped with the Global South carry it, five publishers in all. It appears in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border conflict, where it is framed as counterterrorism necessity, and in the wider dispute over contested borders in South Asia.

No competing position is recorded against it, but Afghan officials and the Taliban-led government dispute the account, saying the strikes killed civilians, including children, and that a Kabul strike hit a medical facility, which Pakistan calls false and misleading. Pakistan says it hit a depot and militant hideouts. Recent events show repeated Pakistani strikes inside Afghanistan, differing casualty counts, a pause in operations for Eid and a UN report saying that Taliban support is fuelling deadlier TTP attacks in Pakistan.