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More than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, person fled a distant portion successful northwestern Pakistan bordering Afghanistan implicit uncertainty of a subject cognition against the Pakistani Taliban, residents and officials said Tuesday (January 27, 2026).
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif has denied the assertion by residents and provincial authorities. He said nary subject cognition was underway oregon planned successful Tirah, a municipality successful Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Speaking astatine a quality league successful Islamabad, helium said harsh weather, alternatively than subject action, was driving the migration. His comments came weeks aft residents started fleeing Tirah implicit fears of a imaginable service operation.
The exodus began a period aft mosque loudspeakers urged residents to permission Tirah by January 23 to debar imaginable fighting. Last August, Pakistan launched a subject cognition against Pakistani Taliban successful the Bajaur territory successful the northwest, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Shafi Jan, a spokesperson for the provincial authorities successful Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, posted connected X that helium held the national authorities liable for the ordeal of the displaced people, saying authorities successful Islamabad were retracting their earlier presumption astir the subject operation.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Suhail Afridi, whose enactment is led by imprisoned erstwhile Prime Minister Imran Khan, has criticized the subject and said his authorities volition not let troops to motorboat a full-scale cognition successful Tirah.
The subject says it volition proceed intelligence-based operations against Pakistani Taliban, who are known arsenic Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, oregon TTP. Though a abstracted group, it has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban returned to powerfulness successful 2021. Authorities accidental galore TTP leaders and fighters person recovered sanctuary successful Afghanistan and that hundreds of them person crossed into Tirah, often utilizing residents arsenic quality shields erstwhile militant hideouts are raided.
Caught successful the mediate are the residents of Tirah, who continued arriving successful Bara.
So far, section authorities person registered astir 10,000 families — astir 70,000 radical — from Tirah, which has a colonisation of astir 150,000, said Talha Rafiq Alam, a section authorities head overseeing the alleviation effort. He said the registration deadline, primitively acceptable for Jan. 23, has been extended to February 5.
He said the displaced would beryllium capable to instrumentality erstwhile the law-and-order concern improves.
Among those arriving successful Bara and adjacent towns was 35-year-old Zar Badshah, who said helium near with his woman and 4 children aft the authorities ordered an evacuation. He said mortar shells had exploded successful villages successful caller weeks, sidesplitting a pistillate and wounding 4 children successful his village. “Community elders told america to leave. They instructed america to evacuate to safer places,” helium said.
At a authorities schoolhouse successful Bara, hundreds of displaced lined up extracurricular registration centers, waiting to beryllium enrolled to person authorities assistance. Many complained the process was slow.
Narendra Singh, 27, said members of the number Sikh assemblage besides fled Tirah aft nutrient shortages worsened, exacerbated by dense snowfall and uncertain security.
“There was a terrible shortage of nutrient items successful Tirah, and that forced america to leave,” helium said.
Tirah gained nationalist attraction successful September, aft an detonation astatine a compound allegedly utilized to store bomb-making materials killed astatine slightest 24 people. Authorities said astir of the dormant were militants linked to the TTP, though section leaders disputed that account, saying civilians, including women and children, were among the dead.
