On Sept. 18, 2026 a suicide driver rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a police complex in Kohat Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The blast ripped through a mosque where worshippers were gathered for Friday prayers, killing 31 people—including 16 police officers—and wounding more than a hundred civilians. After the explosion, an armed group of gunmen entered the compound, sparking a chaotic 20-hour gun battle with security forces before finally withdrawing.
Who claimed the attack and what they represent
The responsibility was announced on encrypted channels such as Telegram by supporters of Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan (IMP). IMP is a jihadist coalition forged in April 2025 from three splinter factions: Lashkar-e-Islam the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group and Inqilab-e-Islami Pakistan. By late 2025 the alliance had eclipsed many rivals to become the second-most active militant force in Pakistan, second only to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Its stated goals are the erosion of the Pakistani state, attacks on security personnel, and the imposition of an Islamist order.
Before Kohat, IMP had already carried out a May 2026 assault on a check-post that left 15 police officers dead, and a July vehicle-borne bomb at a police station in Bannu. The group portrays itself as a unifying front for disparate jihadist entities, a narrative echoed in a propaganda video featuring a cleric urging “unity among jihadi factions.” That rhetoric aligns IMP with Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) which has publicly promoted IMP as a model affiliate in its June–July issue of Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind.
Immediate fallout: cross-border retaliation and intra-jihadist disputes
Within hours of the Kohat incident, rival groups publicly distanced themselves from the attack. Both the Pakistani Taliban and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar issued statements condemning the targeting of a place of worship. The Afghan Taliban, whose leadership the Pakistani Taliban swears allegiance to, also denounced the blast, while AQIS warned its supporters against actions that could “taint their ideology.” The controversy highlighted the fragile coalition that IMP seeks to build; the mosque attack exposed a fault line between ambition and the traditional codes governing jihadist conduct.
In response to the attack, Pakistan launched airstrikes on Afghan soil on Sept. 20, 2026 claiming to have killed 28 militants linked to the Hafiz Gul Bahadur network. The Afghan Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, countered that the strikes hit civilian areas in Kunar and Paktika provinces, causing three civilian deaths. Islamabad’s Ministry of Information described the raids as “calibrated” hits on a “suicide-bombing centre” and a weapons depot, emphasizing that they were retaliation for the Kohat assault.
Broader security context: convergence, competition and regional tension
Pakistan now sits atop the Global Terrorism Index marking its worst security environment in two decades. The surge stems from both convergence—more than a hundred factions have merged into the Pakistani Taliban since 2020—and competition among overlapping groups. While the Taliban and AQIS share a common enemy, their ultimate aims diverge: AQIS pursues a trans-national agenda, whereas the Taliban concentrates on Pakistan’s interior.
Adding complexity, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) remains hostile to all local actors, including the Pakistani Taliban, AQIS, IMP, and the Afghan Taliban, perpetuating a cycle of retaliatory violence. The rivalry extends to a “one-up-manship” competition for resources and notoriety, a dynamic that likely motivated the extreme nature of the Kohat bombing.
These militant dynamics are amplified by the deteriorating relationship between Islamabad and Kabul. Since the Afghan Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021, the two neighbours have clashed over border closures, trade restrictions, and, most recently, reciprocal airstrikes. In February 2026 Pakistan hit Taliban installations across the Afghan border, prompting a fragile ceasefire that has since been strained by incidents like the Kohat attack and the subsequent Pakistani air campaign.
For Islamabad, the identification of at least one bomber as an Afghan national confirmed long-standing accusations that Afghan territory provides sanctuary for groups that target Pakistan. Yet the Afghan Taliban, historically a strategic asset for Pakistan’s intelligence services, has shown little willingness to curtail the very factions that now threaten both states. The Kohat episode therefore deepens Islamabad’s demand for “concrete steps” from Kabul, while the Taliban in Afghanistan warns of “appropriate retaliation” unless pressures ease.
In sum, the September 18 tragedy not only added a grim tally to Pakistan’s casualty list but also illuminated the tangled web of alliances, rivalries, and state-level tensions that define the security landscape of the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier.
