Pakistan carries out 'calibrated' airstrikes in Afghanistan; Kabul says civilians killed
Islamabad says its jets killed 28 suspected militants in strikes on camps in Kunar and Paktika provinces; the Taliban say three civilians died and four were wounded, and vow a response.
Pakistan has carried out what its information ministry called “calibrated” airstrikes against terrorist camps and hideouts in the border region with Afghanistan, with Islamabad claiming 28 suspected militants were killed — while the Taliban government in Kabul said the strikes killed three civilians and wounded four, and vowed retaliation.
Pakistani jet fighters carried out the strikes on Monday on suspected militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported, citing two Pakistani security officials who said 28 suspected militants were killed. Pakistan’s military did not immediately issue a statement on Monday’s operation.
A Pakistani security official told Arab News Pakistan the intelligence-based strikes hit “terrorist positions linked to the Kharji Gul Bahadur group and the FAK (Fitna Al-Khawarij)” — Pakistan’s official label for the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — along the Pakistan–Afghanistan border.
Kabul gave a sharply different account. Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said on X that the strikes hit at least one house in Kunar province around 3am, killing three members of the same family and injuring four others. The attacks struck Nurgal district of Kunar and Barmal district of Paktika, Fitrat said, adding that a house belonging to a villager, Noor Ahmad, in Pathan village in Nurgal was destroyed, while a shop and an unoccupied house were destroyed in Barmal’s Rakhah and Tor Kundi areas with no casualties, Mathrubhumi reported.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on X that Pakistan had “last night” struck civilians in Kunar and Paktika and vowed a response. The Associated Press noted the claims from either side could not be independently verified. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned the strikes as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.
The strikes followed Pakistan’s warning on Saturday that it could hit fighters inside Afghanistan in response to attacks on its forces. On Friday, a suicide bombing and gun assault on a Kohat police compound killed 22 people, including 16 police officers, according to The News and Express Tribune; on Sunday, six Pakistani security personnel, including two army officers, were killed in a gunfight with militants in Hangu district.
Image: the Kunar River valley in Kunar province, Afghanistan (file photo, 2014).
Sources
- Dawn: Pakistan carries out calibrated airstrikes against terrorist camps/hideouts in border region with Afghanistan
- Associated Press (via Arab News): Pakistan says airstrikes target militant hideouts in Afghanistan
- Arab News Pakistan: Pakistani airstrikes kill 28 militants in Afghanistan — security official
- Reuters: Pakistan says 28 killed in airstrikes on three targets in Afghanistan
- Mathrubhumi English: Pakistan carries out airstrikes in Afghanistan; 28 militants reportedly killed
- Firstpost: Pakistan claims targeting TTP in Afghanistan, Taliban say 3 civilians killed in airstrikes
- Al Jazeera: Afghanistan says three killed in Pakistani air attacks
- Khaama Press: Karzai condemns Pakistan airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan
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