Pakistan Threatens Kabul With "Unbearable Punishment" as Border Clashes Continue and Reko Diq Faces a Delay to 2030

Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire at several points along their border. The Torkham crossing closed for five hours after a clash over a disputed checkpoint, Pakistan's Dawn reported. Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, head of the military's media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said the Afghan Taliban "won't be able to bear the cost" of harboring militants. According to Pakistan Today, he called the Taliban a proxy of India and called India the "prime contractor" of terrorism in Pakistan. Dawn reported that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington shares Pakistan's concerns.

India has rejected such charges before. In October, India's foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said Pakistan blames its neighbors for its own internal failures. Kabul has also denied acting on India's behalf. The conflict has run for months: in February, Pakistan's defense minister said the country was in "open war" with Afghanistan.

The insecurity is now affecting investment. Government sources and industry insiders told Dawn that production at the Reko Diq copper-gold project in Balochistan could slip two years, to 2030, depending on improved security in the province and de-escalation in the Middle East. Barrick, the project's operator, has already extended its review of the project to mid-2027 and has warned that costs and the timeline could rise significantly. Violence continued on Sunday: armed men killed two people and abducted a third in Balochistan's Qila Abdullah district.