Fresh firing at Torkham after Taliban try to set up post, migrant returns halted

Gunfire broke out near Torkham again on Sunday afternoon, and the trigger, once again, was a post by the border. According to local sources, Afghan forces tried to set up a security post at a spot known as Jangal, Pakistani forces objected, and the two sides then exchanged fire. It is being described as the third clash at Torkham within a week.

The routine life of the crossing unravelled as soon as the firing was reported. Sources say staff from humanitarian organisations left the area, and a camp holding migrants deported from Pakistan was evacuated. The return of Afghan migrants through Torkham — the crossing’s biggest human traffic — came to a halt. By the time the reports were published, neither Pakistan nor the Afghan Taliban had officially commented on the incident, and there was no confirmed casualty figure for Sunday’s clash.

Why it matters

Torkham is the busiest crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The UN’s humanitarian coordination office, OCHA, says more than 600,000 Afghan migrants returned through it between January and early October 2026 — nearly 85 percent of all recorded returns from Pakistan. That is why a clash here is never just a military story: it also stops thousands of families on their way home.

This tension did not appear overnight. Fighting that began on 11 October kept Torkham closed for more than two weeks before it reopened for migrant returns and trade, and there was further firing there on 28 October, after which OCHA warned that the fighting posed a direct threat to civilians and aid workers. After Sunday’s clash, the question now is whether the crossing closes again or whether contact between the two sides steadies things — an answer that should come in the next few hours.