Afghan national arrested in Tirah Valley over alleged attack plot, police say
Security forces and police arrested an Afghan national in a joint operation in Tirah Valley on November 7, officials said. Additional IG Abbas Ahsan said the suspect had planned attacks in Pakistan.
- An Afghan national was arrested on November 7 in a joint intelligence-based operation in Tirah Valley, officials said.
- Police named the suspect as Hikmatullah, alias Hamza, from Paktia province.
- Officials say he served in the former Afghan national army and prepared a suicide bomber.
Security forces and police arrested an Afghan national accused of planning terrorist attacks in Pakistan, officials said. The joint intelligence-based operation took place in Tirah Valley on November 7. The Express Tribune and Minute Mirror reported that the arrest was made near Peshawar.
Additional IG Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Abbas Ahsan announced the arrest at a press conference on Wednesday. Information Secretary Mahmood Jan Babar was with him. Ahsan identified the suspect as Hikmatullah, alias Hamza, son of Noor Mohammad, from Mangiyar village in Paktia province, Afghanistan.
Ahsan said the suspect served in the former Afghan national army and received three months of military training and three months of commando training. He said that after the army was dissolved, the suspect used his experience at madrassas, resumed training and built contacts to facilitate attacks in Pakistan.
According to Ahsan, the suspect prepared a suicide bomber, a student named Akrama, at the Khalid bin Waleed madrassa near Jalalabad. Ahsan also said the suspect had links with the former Gul Bahadur group and served as a security guard for its commander, Mansoor.
Ahsan said the arrest was made through "human intelligence, electronic surveillance and other intelligence resources." He said interrogation revealed the identities of facilitators in Pakistan and Afghanistan, training locations and planned attack sites in Pakistan.
Officials played a video statement attributed to the suspect. In it he said he studied with a religious scholar for a year before teaching at a madrassa, and that he prepared Akrama for a suicide attack. He also said he was being treated well in Pakistan.
Babar said Pakistan had always presented its case before the world and that the arrest was a success. He said the suspect was not an isolated case, that such networks continued to operate, and that anyone trying to enter Pakistan to attack would be blocked. He said terrorists tried to use darkness to enter the country and that Afghan territory was being used for terrorism.
According to ACLED, attacks in Pakistan rose from 658 in 2022 to 2,425 in 2025. Two security reports presented to the federal cabinet in October showed terrorist incidents in K-P rose 195 per cent between March 2024 and September 2026, with 73 per cent of attacks in 2026 targeting police and security personnel.
Background
khabr.pk reported on 4 November that Pakistan and the United Kingdom held their annual counter-terrorism dialogue in Islamabad, where both sides voiced concern over the TTP operating from Afghanistan. On 1 November, khabr.pk reported that PICSS recorded 143 terrorist attacks in October, down from 226 in September.
Why it matters for Pakistan
The arrest bears on security in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where, according to cabinet reports, 73 per cent of attacks in 2026 targeted police and security personnel. Residents of Tirah, Peshawar and nearby areas are directly affected by operations to stop infiltration. The case also feeds Pakistan's long-running accusation that the banned TTP operates from Afghan territory, which Pakistan has raised with partners such as the UK.
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