Tens of thousands of people traveling in crammed cars and on packed buses have left a remote valley in northwestern Pakistan ahead of a planned military operation against suspected militants active in the area.
The Pakistani Army has set a January 25 deadline for the evacuation of Tirah, a valley of some 150,000 people near the border with Afghanistan. The strategic area is a stronghold of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group, which is waging an increasingly potent insurgency against Islamabad.
"I have a shop, which was my source of living," said Saeed Khan, who rented a truck to transport 22 members of his extended family and their possessions from Tirah. "That shop is gone now and so are my earnings. What should I do now?"
Khan is one of around 80,000 people who have so far left Tirah for Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Many oppose the planned army offensive and complain that the evacuation has been chaotic and dangerous.
Residents must navigate multiple security checkpoints on the main road leading out of Tirah, which is choked by traffic. The drive to Peshawar, usually less than three hours, now takes up to several days, and many are struggling in freezing temperatures without adequate food, water, or sanitation.
"My family includes women and children, and the weather is running below zero during the night," said Ihsanullah, a man in his mid-20s who left Tirah with his extended family.
"One of my children became sick," added Ihsanullah, who goes by only one name. "I requested the security personnel to open the road for us as my child's condition was getting worse. They said they were not allowed to open the road. My child died."
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Displaced From Pakistan's Tirah Valley, Evacuees Seek Aid In Peshawar
On January 22, two children died after the vehicle they were traveling in skidded off the road and fell into a ravine. The area has reported heavy snowfall in recent days.
Ihsanullah has spent several days in Bara, a town outside Peshawar where people must register with the authorities. Each family then receives 250,000 rupees (around $900), an amount that is meant to cover rent and other expenses for two months, the expected duration of the military operation in Tirah.
Pakistan's Tirah Valley
'Everything Was Destroyed'
For many residents of Tirah, this is not the first time they've been forcibly displaced.
The region has been a hotbed for militancy for years and the scene of dozens of Pakistani military operations since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Major military offensives aimed at uprooting militants have killed civilians as well as insurgents and uprooted millions in the past two decades.
The Pakistani Army, which has an oversized role in the country's domestic and foreign affairs, has been accused of committing widespread human rights violations. Abuses by the government have boosted support for the TTP.
Northwestern Pakistan is home to the country's Pashtun ethnic minority. Pashtuns make up many of the recruits and members of the TTP.
Gulalai said her family was first displaced from Tirah Valley in 2010, when the Pakistani military launched an operation there against suspected militants.
"We returned to Tirah in 2019, and we were unable to recognize our houses because everything was destroyed," said the 25-year-old, adding that her family received no compensation for their losses. "Now, once again they issued a deadline asking us to vacate our houses."
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The planned military operation has been opposed by locals, the provincial government, and opposition political figures.
Mahmood Khan Achakzai, a lawmaker and opposition leader, told parliament on January 19 that "for the past 20 years, people are being forced to leave their areas where they had been living for thousands of years."
"Now they are vacating the whole of Tirah Valley in this freezing cold," he added. "Is it not terrorism to force people out of their homes? For God's sake, don't do this."
Sohail Afridi, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province who is from the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf party, said he had "never supported the operation." He added that the planned army offensive was "imposed by the barrel of a gun."
Peshawar-based political analyst Riffatullah Orakzai said there have been 22 major army operations in the past 20 years in northwestern Pakistan. In many cases, militants simply vacate an area before a military operation and return to the same area after the army departs, he said.
"People in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are questioning the validity of those operations, and it seems they have no trust in it," he said.
"There are very few areas that have not been declared cleared of militants. [But the military] again returns for another operation again. Tirah is one such area that was once declared cleared [of the TTP] in the past."
The planned army operation in Tirah comes as the TTP intensifies its yearslong insurgency against Islamabad.
Pakistan recorded at least 3,387 combat-related deaths in 2025, a 73 percent increase compared with 1,950 in 2024, according to the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS).
The number of civilians, militants, and members of the Pakistani security forces killed all rose to levels not seen for years.
"Pakistan's counterterrorism battlefield saw a marked escalation in 2025, with violence intensifying in both tempo and lethality," PICSS said in its annual report released on December 28.
Experts have said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 boosted the fighting capabilities of armed groups in the region, including the TTP.
The TTP and Afghan Taliban have close ideological and organizational ties. Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban of sheltering the Pakistani militants.
Pakistan had hoped the Afghan Taliban, its longtime ally, would rein in and dismantle the TTP, experts said. But the Taliban has refused, with Islamabad responding by conducting unprecedented air strikes in Afghanistan last year.