At least 36 civilians were killed and more than 160 others injured in overnight Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan, Afghan officials announced on Monday, as tensions between the neighbouring countries escalated further.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistani security forces launched a ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border late on Sunday, followed by strikes on militant hideouts and safe havens that killed 29 fighters. He said the operation was carried out in response to multiple militant attacks across Pakistan.
Afghanistan condemned the strikes as a “cowardly act of aggression” and an “act of brutality.” Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, said Pakistani forces struck a house in Chamkani district of Paktia province, killing an elderly man and a child and injuring other family members. He said the area was hit again after residents gathered for rescue efforts, killing 28 villagers and injuring 158 others.
Fitrat said another strike on a house in Giyan district of Paktika province killed six people, mostly women and children. A civilian home in Kunar province was also hit, causing no casualties but killing around 30 livestock.
Militant attacks on Pakistan’s police and security forces have increased in recent years. Pakistani authorities have blamed the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied militant groups for most of the violence. The TTP is separate from, but allied with, Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which returned to power in 2021.
The Pakistani operation came after militants attacked the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as a wounded Afghan national.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack.
The cross-border strikes and ground operation took place less than three weeks after Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as militant hideouts in Afghanistan. Those strikes ended about a month of relative calm after Islamabad had described the conflict as an “open war” between the neighbouring countries, despite international efforts to broker lasting peace.
The latest escalation follows months of tit-for-tat military action. Hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghan territory.
Several rounds of talks have failed to achieve a lasting ceasefire. China also hosted talks between the two sides in April, after which Beijing said Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed not to escalate the conflict and to explore a solution.
