Pakistan targets militants in eastern Afghanistan, killing dozens, as Afghan officials report civilian casualties and tensions flare.
TSAMKANI: Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens of people in eastern Afghanistan, with Islamabad saying on Monday it targeted militants but the Afghan government reporting civilian casualties.
The strikes are the latest flare-up of violence between the neighbours whose relationship has been fraught since 2021, when the Taliban government took power in Kabul, and follow a weeks-long war that erupted in February.
Pakistan’s information minister said the operations killed 25 militants and were aimed at a group that it blames for a deadly weekend attack in Karachi, although Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied their territory harbours militants.
The Taliban government said the airstrikes hit three eastern provinces, killing 36 civilians and wounding 163.
“When local residents gathered to conduct rescue operations, the area was bombed for a second time” in Paktia province, deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.
Pakistan’s information minister said the offensive also included ground operations in border areas and targeted Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“Three targets in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar were destroyed during precision strikes,” information minister Attaullah Tarar said in a statement. He said four militants were also killed in ground operations.
Simmering conflict
The neighbours agreed to a ceasefire in March but there have been sporadic attacks since, with Pakistani strikes in June killing 13 people, according to Afghan officials.
Islamabad is mediating between the United States and Iran to end their war in the Middle East, but Pakistan says its battle against militancy at home requires its strikes on Afghanistan.
Explosives were detonated and gunmen opened fire inside a Rangers paramilitary camp in Karachi on Saturday in the latest militant attack, one of the worst in Pakistan’s most populous city in years.
Authorities said three paramilitary personnel were killed and that they had detained an Afghan national, one of several people involved in the attack.
Pakistan says its forces use “precise targeting” to aim at militant hideouts and weapons stores, especially those of the TTP that has waged a violent campaign against Pakistan for years.
Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied that the country is used by militants and say Pakistani operations have caused a heavy civilian death toll, including a strike at a drug treatment centre in March that the United Nations said killed hundreds.
Pakistan and Afghanistan went to war in late February, with weeks of violence killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands, according to the UN.
There was fierce fighting along the frontier during that conflict and unprecedented Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities, including the capital and southern Kandahar where the Afghan Taliban’s supreme leader is based.
Mediation from several countries, including China, has failed to produce a lasting resolution between them and the frontier has been largely closed since cross-border violence broke out in October.
