Afghanistan hits back at Pakistan

EIGHT civilians were killed yesterday in “reckless” air strikes by Pakistan’s military in the border regions of Afghanistan, prompting Afghan forces to retaliate against Pakistani military outposts, Taliban officials said.

Border tensions between the two countries have risen since the Taliban government seized power in 2021, with Islamabad claiming militant groups are carrying out regular attacks from Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft “bombed civilian homes” in Khost and Paktika provinces near the border with Pakistan at around 3am, adding that all the dead were women and children.

Afghanistan’s defence ministry said its border forces retaliated in response to the airstrikes, targeting Pakistan’s military points along the disputed border with “heavy weapons”.

Cross-border skirmishes in the region were reported by both sides into yesterday afternoon, the latest in a string of such incidents on the disputed frontier.

The Taliban government “strongly condemns these attacks and calls this reckless action a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty”, Mujahid said.

Malak Noor Khan, a tribal elder in the Sperah district of Khost, said he saw at least four explosives dropped from drones and jets and that multiple homes were destroyed, one with a woman and her children inside.

Large numbers of civilians fled Waziristan in 2014 when the Pakistani military launched an operation to wipe out militant bases in tribal areas, many crossing the border into Afghanistan.

A local government official in Pakistan’s border regions said residents had been instructed to evacuate the area amid the skirmishes.

Areas along the border have long been a stronghold for militant groups such as Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has increased its attacks on Pakistani security forces in the porous border regions.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s Taliban government of harbouring TTP fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity. Kabul has denied the allegations. A senior government official said that despite repeated complaints, “Afghanistan does not seem to be taking the matter seriously”.