ISLAMABAD: Continued military action by Pakistan and Afghanistan against each other risks entrenching a “cycle of retaliation” rather than curbing militancy, analysts warned on Sunday, following Pakistan’s latest cross-border airstrikes in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s information ministry said the overnight strikes involved “intelligence-based selective targeting of seven terrorist camps” and described them as a retributive response to recent militant attacks inside Pakistan.

While a Pakistani security official said the airstrikes killed more than 80 militants, Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the incursions killed and injured “dozens of people, including women and children.”

The exchange marks a further deterioration in ties that have frayed since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Diplomatic efforts to ease tensions, including mediation attempts involving Qatar, Turkiye and other countries, have failed to yield results.

Abdul Sayed, an independent researcher on security and foreign affairs in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, said Islamabad could conduct more strikes if militant attacks continued inside Pakistan.

“In the context of Pakistan’s prevailing policy of prioritizing military force over negotiations, it appears that the continuation of such aerial strikes in Afghanistan is likely, particularly as militant attacks are escalating rather than declining,” he told Arab News.

Pakistani authorities have not publicly endorsed such a policy, while its information ministry said Islamabad conducted the strikes in response to recent attacks, particularly by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), inside Pakistan.

Pakistan says militant violence has surged since the return of the Afghan Taliban to power and accuses the Afghan authorities of failing to act against the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, which it says operates from Afghan sanctuaries. The Taliban deny allowing Afghan soil to be used for attacks against any country.

Asif Durrani, a former Pakistani special representative to Afghanistan, said the latest operation had been anticipated for weeks.

“The current Taliban regime is not serious about controlling the TTP or its leadership,” he said. “The regime is in a denial mode about the TTP activities inside Pakistan and is behaving as a militia organization. This is not responsible governance.”

He said the strikes had conveyed a “calibrated but unmistakable message” that cross-border sanctuaries would no longer be accepted.

Hours before the Saturday’s airstrikes, a suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in the border district of Bannu in Pakistan’s northwest, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel. Another suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden vehicle last week into the wall of a security post in Bajaur district, which borders Afghanistan, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Pakistani authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan had “conclusive evidence” that the recent attacks, including a suicide bombing that targeted a Shiite mosque in Islamabad and killed 32 worshippers this month, were carried out by militants acting on the “behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers.”

While Pakistan’s military has conducted such cross-border operations in the past as well, analysts say the recurrence of such airstrikes risks normalizing a tactic that could further inflame anti-Pakistan sentiment in Afghanistan.

“Unless there is a substantive shift, either in Pakistan’s demand for concrete action or in Kabul’s approach toward the alleged presence of militants, such incidents risk becoming a recurring feature of the bilateral relationship,” Tameem Bahiss, a Kabul-based analyst, told Arab News, describing the current trajectory of bilateral ties as “deeply concerning”.

“From Pakistan’s perspective, the frustration is understandable given the rise in militant violence inside its territory,” he said. “However, aerial strikes inside Afghanistan risk widening the diplomatic divide and fueling anti Pakistan sentiment within Afghanistan. That in turn could make it even more politically difficult for Kabul to take visible or forceful action against groups that Pakistan accuses of operating there.”

The Taliban’s Ministry of National Defense has warned of an “appropriate and measured response” to what it called a violation of Afghan sovereignty, raising concerns about a potential retaliation to Pakistani airstrikes.

Based on trends since 2022, Sayed said, Pakistan’s aerial operations may have carried domestic political utility but produced “net strategic losses”.

“These operations are, in the long term, undermining Pakistan’s own objectives, serving not to diminish the threat of militancy but to further reinforce it,” he said, arguing that they have bolstered popular support for the Afghan Taliban while militant attacks inside Pakistan have continued to rise.

The core dispute centers on Islamabad’s insistence that Kabul honor commitments under the 2020 Doha Agreement to prevent Afghan territory from being used by militant groups against other states. The Taliban say they are committed to regional stability and reject accusations of harboring militants.

With negotiations stalled and mounting allegations by either side, analysts say military responses would do little to address deeper mistrust between the neighbors.

“In my view, the conduct of both Pakistan and Afghanistan has been escalatory,” Bahiss said. “Military responses may deliver short-term signaling, but they do not address the underlying mistrust.”