Pakistan Rejects Khalilzad's Claim It Is Arming Former Afghans Against the Taliban, Calls It 'Baseless'

Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Saturday it 'categorically rejects' former US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad's allegation that Islamabad is arming former Afghan personnel to fight the Taliban — an allegation, not an established fact — and said the claim diverts attention from militant groups operating inside Afghanistan.

Awaaz Punjab Investigations Desk24 October 20263 min readRead in all 3 languages

Pakistan has rejected allegations by former US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad that Islamabad is arming former Afghan personnel to fight the Taliban, describing the claims as unsubstantiated and misleading. In a statement posted on X on Saturday, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said: 'Pakistan categorically rejects the baseless and misleading allegations by Khalilzad of arming former Afghans to fight the Taliban and their supporter terrorist groups.' Khalilzad's allegation is reported here as an allegation; no evidence for it was presented in the reports.

Source: The Diplomatic Insight, Oct 24, 2026

A second report of the same ministry statement, carried by Shafaqna Pakistan citing Dunya News, said the ministry called Khalilzad's claims recycled speculative narratives reflecting a personal agenda, and said it was misleading to equate Pakistan's counterterrorism operations against militant organisations operating from areas under Afghan Taliban control with recruiting Afghan nationals or sponsoring armed groups inside Afghanistan.

Source: Shafaqna Pakistan (citing Dunya News), Oct 24, 2026

The ministry said successive UN monitoring reports have documented the continued presence and activities of terrorist organisations, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al-Qaeda, inside Afghanistan, and argued that the allegations divert attention from the Afghan Taliban authorities' responsibility to prevent their territory from being used for attacks against Pakistan. It said Pakistan remained at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and had made enormous sacrifices for regional peace and security.

Source: The Diplomatic Insight, Oct 24, 2026

The exchange comes amid continuing tensions between Islamabad and Kabul over militant activity along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which Pakistan's foreign office has repeatedly raised, demanding verifiable action against groups it says operate from Afghan territory. Sources: The Diplomatic Insight and Shafaqna Pakistan (citing Dunya News), reporting Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting statement.