Islamabad — Incarcerated former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan has denounced the ongoing military operation against militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), urging his party lawmakers in parliament and the Senate to “resist the operations and drone strikes.”

The remarks were shared on Thursday through a series of posts on Khan’s official X (formerly Twitter) account, reportedly based on a conversation with his sisters during their visit to Adiala Jail. While Khan has no access to his social media account in prison, it remains unclear who operates it on his behalf.

Khan’s Objection to Operations

In the posts, reflecting his September 10 conversation with his sisters, Khan said, “The military operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must be stopped immediately. ANP was made unpopular through similar actions in the past. Launching operations against our own people merely to please foreign powers does not improve the situation; it only makes it worse.”

He warned that people already reeling from inflation and flood devastation were being further burdened by military action, stressing: “History bears witness that apart from negotiations, there has never been any lasting solution to peace.”

PTI’s Past Policy on Militancy

During PTI’s earlier tenure in KP, the country was grappling with the aftermath of the December 16, 2014, Army Public School (APS) attack in Peshawar, in which six militants of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed 149 people, including 132 children. The tragedy prompted major operations, Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fasaad, which weakened militant networks.

However, following the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, the TTP regrouped and regained safe havens in Afghanistan. Despite PTI’s emphasis on dialogue, reports surfaced in 2022 that two senior TTP commanders, Muslim Khan and Mehmood Khan, were released from custody and handed to the Afghan Taliban, coinciding with a sharp rise in cross-border attacks.

Pakistan later initiated negotiations, with cleric Mufti Taqi Usmani among the mediators, but talks collapsed.

Rising Attacks and New Operations

According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), August 2025 was the deadliest month in over a decade, with 143 militant attacks, mostly by the TTP and affiliates, killing 94 people, including 73 security personnel and 62 civilians.

Officials said the surge in violence and failed talks left the government no choice but to launch fresh operations in KP as part of a long-term security policy. Security sources estimate that over 8,000 militants have infiltrated from Afghanistan. On August 8, 57 militants were killed in Balochistan’s Zhob district during an attempted infiltration, while three of the five attackers in the September 2 assault on Frontier Corps Lines in Bannu were identified as Afghan nationals.

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Khan’s Criticism of Refugee Policy

Khan also regretted the forcible expulsion of Afghan refugees, saying, “Forcibly expelling refugees is deeply regrettable. Asim Munir is doing all this merely to appease the anti-Taliban lobby, deliberately imposing war in a place where no war exists.”

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Officials, however, defended the repatriation drive as lawful, citing Pakistan’s right to send back migrants now that Afghanistan is stable, and arguing that militants hiding among immigrants were fueling both economic and security instability.

Political Context

Khan compared the current situation to that of the Awami National Party (ANP), which, he argued, lost support in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to its stance on earlier military operations. ANP leaders, on the other hand, have long been critical of PTI policies; provincial president Mian Iftikhar Hussain has accused the military of “engineering elections” and installing PTI in KP in 2018.

At the same time, Pakistan continues to urge the Afghan Taliban to uphold commitments under the Doha Agreement, particularly by preventing cross-border militant activity, which remains central to Islamabad’s security concerns.