The Afghan Taliban’s ‘Digital War’ Against Pakistan

The Afghan Taliban’s ‘Digital War’ Against Pakistan

Executive Summary:

• On October 9, 2025, Pakistan allegedly carried out airstrikes in Kabul targeting the leadership of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which it accused the Afghan Taliban of harboring.
• The Taliban has responded with a digital war against Pakistan, using controlled social media platforms, insurgent poetry, militant and jihadist anthems, to reframe Pakistan-Afghanistan relations in ethno-nationalist, jihadist, and territorial terms.
• The digital war campaign intends to deconstruct the power of the Pakistani military, undermine the trust of Pakistanis in security institutions, add fuel to ethnic division, and build an anti-Pakistan perception at the regional level.

On October 9, 2025, Pakistan allegedly carried out airstrikes on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, to target key leaders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), particularly its head Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud  (Hash e Subha, October 11, 2025). Pakistan repeatedly requested the Taliban authorities to refrain from harboring the TTP leadership inside Afghan territory (The News, September 17, 2025). The airstrikes were unofficially termed as an “act of compulsion” to defend Pakistani territory against militants and to undermine their hideouts. In response, the Taliban have launched a digital anti-Pakistan campaign.

Websites and social media are playing a leading role in strengthening the Afghan Taliban’s political and security narratives and anti-Pakistan rhetoric (Alemarah, March 14, 2025). Platforms such as Al-mirsaad, Omid Radio, the Kabul Times, Hewad, Anis daily, and YouTube channels including Yad and Maihan are actively promoting the Taliban’s core policy visions and marginalizing dissent (CPJ, August 13, 2025). The sophisticated media strategies and propaganda networks of the Taliban demonstrate the new Afghan government’s preparedness for digital media warfare in the age of communication.

Digital Response

Pakistan’s interior minister blamed Afghanistan for last November’s suicide bombings in Islamabad and Waziristan, which killed 12 people (Khaama Press, November 13, 2025). The Afghan Taliban opted for an aggressive response to Pakistan’s allegations. These measures included a rejection of all accusations, attempts to debunk claims, and the construction of an image of Pakistan as an aggressor in the region. Following the airstrikes in Kabul, Taliban social media accounts and Afghan media channels circulated videos of TTP head Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud stating that he is alive and not even in Kabul, but in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (X/@TOLOnews, October 16, 2025). This video rejected Pakistan’s claims, while cementing the Afghan Taliban’s stance that there are no militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.

The Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud video was widely promoted across a coordinated network of high-impact social media platforms. It served the Taliban’s denial-deception framework against Pakistan, sabotaging Islamabad’s justification for the attacks on Kabul. This helped the Afghan Taliban to invalidate Pakistan’s security rhetoric among Afghans and other regional neighbors.

In lieu of diplomatic channels, state-to-state contacts, and “flag-meetings,” the Taliban deliberately prioritized digital propaganda to strengthen anti-Pakistan narratives and to secure political as well as security interests. As a result, the Taliban transformed the war theatre from combat operations, the Durand Line, and border security checkpoints to X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, other social media platforms, and media screens.

Messaging and Threats

As soon as the Taliban commenced narrative warfare, they accelerated ideological manipulation, psychological operations and disinformation campaigns to degrade Pakistani military’s reputation and will (X/@Army_of_Afghani, November 5, 2025) These networks circulated photographs displaying threats at key sites in Islamabad, such as Faisal Mosque and Mazar-e-Quaid (Quaid-e-Azam’s tomb), and messages that “if Kabul is attacked, Islamabad will burn” were central to the Taliban’s digital campaign (X/@ist_Afghanistan, October 28, 2025). Though such visuals did not confirm the Taliban’s combat capability, they helped in psychological and militant messaging for deterrence.

(Source: X/@ist_Afghanistan)

Equally important was the circulation of videos and songs portraying Pakistan’s military as traitors, slaves, hypocrites, and the enemy of Muslims and Islam (X/@MuslimKundzi, November 24, 2025). The use of such terms was primarily aimed at disrupting the moral and ideological legitimacy of the Pakistani army among religious circles and Pashtuns on social media. One video featuring the Taliban anthem and a military rehearsal provoked nationalist rhetoric by proclaiming “if I did not raise the white flag on Lahore and Islamabad, I will not be an Afghan son,” which is an explicit reference to the two countries’ territorial conflict and historical hostility (X/@MuslimKundzi, November 15, 2025).

Durand Line

Though the Durand Line issue has always remained central between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban have further instrumentalized it through digital propaganda. The Taliban call it a “fictional line” that is unacceptable for all Afghans. Terming an internationally recognized border a “line of control” also signals Afghanistan’s irredentist claim to the Durand Line, inciting ethno-nationalist sentiments and reviving narratives of territorial revisionism (X@Mufti_A_haqqani, November 5, 2025). Even Anas Haqqani—the younger brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani—wrote a poem during the bilateral tensions, conveying a message that if “We (Afghans) decide to get Attock [a city on the Eastern bank of Indus River, which in historical perspective Afghans claim as part of Afghanistan] soon you will see even Afghan forces in Jhelum city of Punjab as well (X/@samirmujahid1, November 3, 2025; Nunn asia, November 6, 2025).

Afghan social media accounts have, furthermore, begun circulating videos showing maps of Attock, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and half of Balochistan, including Gwadar, as part of “Greater Afghanistan” (X/@KhalidZaland01, November 28, 2025). Though these digital maps did not provide an immediate operational blueprint for the Taliban, they served as psychological tools to reframe the question of geographical legitimacy. The Taliban’s focus on territorial revisionism militarizes Pashtun identity politics towards the state of Pakistan and puts into question Pakistan’s existing territorial control as unlawful and controversial.

(Source: X/@KhalidZaland01)

Conclusion

The emergence of the Afghan Taliban’s hostile narratives against Pakistan reveals a serious transformation in the regional relations. In response to Pakistan’s allegations, reported airstrikes and cross-border skirmishes, the Afghan Taliban established an organized, advanced, controlled, and diversified digital war campaign. This campaign aims to counter Pakistan’s security institutions, provoke ethno-nationalist sentiments, revive territorial claims, and exploit Islamabad’s internal political crisis. The infusion of irredentist claims, psychological warfare, and reconfiguration of sophisticated media networks helps the Taliban to create moral legitimacy, manipulate anti-Pakistan sentiments, and achieve strategic goals. In this age of information, the Taliban is well-adapted to exploit narrative warfare against adversaries, and especially Pakistan.