Claim: A video shows the burning site of a drone attack in Peshawar where Afghanistan’s forces targeted an office of Pakistani intelligence operatives.
Fact: The video is unrelated to the ongoing clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan; it actually shows a fire that rescue officials said erupted in a building on Peshawar’s Ashraf Road. Moreover, there are no verifiable reports of a supposed drone strike in the country by the Afghan Taliban.
On 15 October 2025, X (formerly Twitter) user @HaidarHashmi0 posted (archive) a video claiming that Afghanistan’s forces successfully targeted and destroyed an office of Pakistani intelligence operatives, resulting in a fire.
The accompanying caption reads as follows:
“BREAKING 🚨 😱🇵🇰 In the Pakistani province of Peshawar, an Afghan Air Force drone specifically targeted a room in a plaza near Bala Hisar that was being used as a secret office for special Pakistani intelligence activities.”
Some Afghan and Indian users went as far as to claim that the alleged drone strike targeted the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI) “office”, “centre”, “building” or “regional headquarters”.
Pakistan, Afghanistan clashes
On the night of 11 October 2025, the forces of Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government launched (archive) an attack on Pakistan’s military posts along the border.
After the clashes, the Pakistan Army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said over “200 Taliban and affiliated terrorists have been neutralised while the number of injured is much higher”. It also confirmed losing 23 soldiers, saying 29 others were wounded.
The ISPR added that the defence was a response to “an unprovoked attack on Pakistan” by “Afghan Taliban and Indian-sponsored Fitna-al-Khawarij”, a term the government uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Noting that the attacks came during the visit of Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to India, which is “the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the region”, the statement urged the “Taliban government to take immediate and verifiable actions to neutralize the terrorist groups, inter alia, FAK [Fitna-al-Khawarij], FAH [Fitna-al-Hindustan] and ISKP/ Daesh operating from their territory”.
“Fitna-al-Hindustan” is a term the government uses to refer to the “terrorist organisations in Balochistan”, according to Dawn.
Interestingly, Muttaqi also referred to Pakistan-administered Kashmir as part of India, in a recent joint statement issued by Kabul and New Delhi — a move that caused concern according to the Foreign Office.
On the other hand, Afghanistan claimed to have killed “58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations” and wounded at least 30. Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid admitted that nine of their “fighters had died and between 16 and 18 people had been injured”.
In this regard, US President Donald Trump said, “I hear there’s a war now going on between Pakistan and Afghanistan. […] I’m good at solving wars, I’m good at making peace.”
Pakistan says Afghanistan facilitates TTP
Islamabad has long alleged that Afghanistan harbours armed groups and facilitates the TTP’s attacks inside Pakistan, accusations that Kabul has denied.
The 11 October clashes came shortly after Afghanistan accused (archive) Pakistan “of launching airstrikes on its capital Kabul”, with its defence ministry saying Islamabad “violated the air space” and bombed a “civilian market” near the border.
At that time, Pakistan’s FO did not directly acknowledge the alleged attack but said the country’s counterterrorism moves were “legitimate self-defence against militants operating from Afghan soil”.
However, Reuters quoted a Pakistani security official as saying TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud’s vehicle was targeted in the Kabul airstrike but Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, denied the claim in an interview with Anadolu Agency.
According to Dawn, Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said, “Afghanistan is being used as a base of operations for carrying out terrorism in Pakistan. There is also evidence of this.” He, however, did not confirm or deny airstrikes in Kabul were carried out by the military.
Al Jazeera reported that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said “enough is enough” and issued a warning to Afghanistan “of consequences for continued assaults on Pakistani forces”. The continuous fighting “prompted calls for restraint from Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia”, it added.
In the wee hours of 15 October, however, “new clashes erupted” between Pakistan and Afghanistan “at the joint border, with both sides accusing the other of having begun the hostilities”, marking the second time this month that fighting started.
The ISPR said Afghan Taliban attacked “four locations in Spin Boldak area of Balochistan” and “destroyed Pak-Afghan Friendship Gate on their side”, alongside a similar one at “Pakistani border posts in Kurram Sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”. In total, 40-50 “Afghan Taliban and Fitna-al-Khawarij fighters” were killed or “suspected to have been killed” and “many injured”, it added.
Mujahid alleged that Pakistan launched the Spin Boldak attack, with 12 civilians killed and over 100 injured. “Multiple” Pakistani soldiers were killed, he asserted.
Peace talks, Trump mediation offer
Later in the day, the state-run Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) reported that “Afghanistan was seeking a ceasefire on the border near the village of Chaman where the fighting was concentrated”, according to The Washington Post (archive).
Since 10 October, “at least 18 people have been killed and more than 360 wounded” on the Afghanistan side, Arab News reported, quoting a statement issued by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
The two countries agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire effective as of 6 pm on 15 October.
An agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan extended the “initial 48-hour truce and resulted in a permanent ceasefire”. Talks between the two countries are being mediated by Qatar and Türkiye and the second round of negotiations has entered a third day without any success.
On 26 October, the ISPR said at least five soldiers and 25 Afghan militants were killed in latest border clashes. A day prior, Defence Minister Asif “said the truce was holding” but warned of “open war” if no agreement could be reached in Türkiye.
Trump once again offered mediation, saying, “I heard that Pakistan and Afghanistan have started up. But I’ll get that solved very quickly.”
No ‘workable solution’ found in talks
The peace talks, however, have fallen through and Asif, the defence minister, accused “certain Afghan officials” of having a “devious and splintered mindset of [the] Taliban regime”. He warned, “Pakistan does not require to employ even a fraction of its full arsenal to completely obliterate the Taliban regime and push them back to the caves for hiding.”
Additionally, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s “fervent efforts [for peace and prosperity] proved futile due to Afghan Taliban Regime’s unabated support to anti-Pakistan terrorists”.
Tarar claimed that Kabul kept continuously “deviating from the core issue” — which, he said, was to “prevent use of Afghan soil by these terrorist organisations as training-cum-logistic base and jump off point for terrorist activities in Pakistan”.
“Instead of accepting any responsibility, the Afghan Taliban resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses. The dialogue thus failed to bring about any workable solution,” he added, while thanking Qatar and Türkiye for their mediation.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and came across a YouTube Short posted on 15 October 2025. Its description contains Urdu tickers, one of which reads, “پشاور: اشرف روڈ پر واقع اتحاد پلازہ میں اچانک آگ بھڑک اٹھی۔ ریسکیو1122 [Peshawar: A sudden fire broke out in Ittehad Plaza on Ashraf Road: Rescue 1122]”.
Using relevant keywords, we were able to trace at least three other videos of the same fire incident at Ittehad Plaza on Peshawar’s Ashraf Road but recorded from different angles.
We also found news reports about the same fire byin two media outlets: Daily Askar and Mashriq TV.
The fire “broke out in Ittehad Plaza, [which is] located in the busy Firdous Chowk”, according to Mashriq TV, which added that fire vehicles and officials reached the spot as soon as Rescue 1122 received the information.
“According to a Rescue 1122 spokesperson, the fire broke out on the upper floor of the plaza and intensified rapidly; however, the firefighters demonstrated professionalism and took timely action to control the fire,” it added.
No loss of life was reported.
On its Facebook page, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Rescue 1122 shared an update on the incident provided by Peshawar District Emergency Officer (DEO). This included visuals from the scene in addition to the Urdu tickers.
This visual shows matching markers identified by Soch Fact Check. The image on the left is a screenshot from the viral video; the three pictures on the right are from the Facebook post by KP Rescue 1122.
Lastly, there have been no verifiable reports from reputable media outlets about a drone attack by Afghan Taliban in Peshawar.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the claim is false.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim circulating here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook, here and here on Instagram, here on X, here on YouTube, and here on TikTok.
A Pakistani user also wrongly shared the video with the claim that it showed Islamabad’s strike in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The clip gained significant traction among pro-Afghan and pro-Indian circles; such posts can be viewed here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The video is unrelated to the ongoing clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan; it actually shows a fire that rescue officials said erupted in a building on Peshawar’s Ashraf Road. Moreover, there are no verifiable reports of a supposed Afghan Taliban drone strike in the country.
Background image in cover photo: Google Maps
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