ISLAMABAD: Pakistani and Afghan authorities on Monday accused each other of targeting civilians along their shared border amid fierce fighting between both sides since last month.
The accusations come amid escalating cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan that began late last month and have involved artillery exchanges, drone attacks and air strikes along their rugged frontier. The fighting erupted after Afghan forces targeted Pakistani border posts on Feb. 26, which Islamabad said was in response to earlier Pakistani strikes on militant camps inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups, particularly the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that launch attacks across the border, a charge Kabul denies. The latest violence has raised regional concerns, with countries including China urging both sides to de-escalate and resolve tensions through dialogue.
On Monday, the Pakistani information ministry said Afghan Taliban forces attacked a civilian area in the Salarzai region of Bajaur district in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday afternoon.
“Today on 15th of March 2026 around 1530 hours, Afghan Taliban regime deliberately targeted civilian population in Tabesta Letai,” the information ministry said.
“Four innocent civilians have embraced shahadat while one five-year-old child is seriously injured in the attack.”
Separately, Afghan authorities said four civilians were killed due to Pakistani shelling in eastern Afghanistan overnight between Sunday and Monday, according to international news agency AFP.
“At 12:00 am last night (1930 GMT Sunday), the Pakistani forces fired mortar shells on the Nari village of Gurbuz district, killing a woman and a child,” Mustaghfir Gurbuz, the governor’s spokesman in eastern Khost province, told AFP.
Pakistani mortar shelling killed two other children on Sunday night in the Afghan Dubai area of Khost, the governor’s office said in a statement.
Islamabad has rejected Kabul’s allegations that Pakistani forces had targeted civilian infrastructure in Afghanistan, saying its operations were limited to militant sites.
“The claim by so called Deputy Spokesperson of Afghan Taliban regime is yet again a poor attempt to cover up their own heinous targeting of civilian population along Pak-Afghan Border and to befool its own citizens reeling under a terror sponsoring regime,” the statement added.
The latest accusations highlight the continuing deterioration in relations between the two neighbors, whose roughly 2,600-kilometer border has long been a flashpoint for militancy and cross-border raids.
Pakistan says its forces have killed more than 680 Afghan Taliban fighters since the clashes began last month, while Kabul says dozens of Pakistani soldiers have been killed in cross-border fighting.
Neither side’s battlefield claims can be independently verified.
On Sunday, the information minister denied the Afghan defense ministry’s claim of a “successful” strike on a military installation in KP’s South Waziristan district.
“The fact is that a rudimentary drone was destroyed over South Waziristan through soft kill measures. No military installation or infrastructure was hit,” it said on X, sharing pictures of the drone debris.
“The Taliban regime’s claim reflects their established pattern of pushing propaganda and fabricated claims, such as the recent false assertions about shooting down Pakistan Air Force aircraft and capturing pilots, hence cannot be relied upon.”
Pakistan earlier said it had targeted militant hideouts in Afghanistan’s Kandahar region overnight as the fighting showed no signs of abating.
In a post on X, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the military had struck equipment storage facilities and “technical support infrastructure” in overnight attacks in Kandahar.
Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said Pakistan had hit two locations: a site used by security guards during the day that was empty at night, and a drug rehabilitation center that suffered slight damage. He said there were no casualties.
