ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday rejected Afghanistan’s claim of carrying out strikes on alleged Daesh hideouts in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, saying only a single Afghan drone had entered Pakistani airspace overnight that was shot down.
This is the latest military exchange between the neighbors in their ongoing border conflict that erupted in Oct. 2025 and escalated sharply after Pakistan’s airstrikes on Afghan territory in Feb., which followed a series of suicide attacks in Pakistan. Islamabad blamed the attacks on Afghanistan-based militants, an allegation denied by Kabul.
In a series of X posts on Friday, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said Afghanistan’s air force struck Daesh-linked hideouts at two locations in Balochistan and one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It said the sites had been used to plan attacks against Afghanistan and that “all pre-designated high-value targets were successfully struck.”
Islamabad described the claims as “false.”
“The Afghan Taliban regime through their various propaganda mouthpieces and official statements are claiming to have targeted some alleged ISKP (Daesh Khorasan) camps in border areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan using rudimentary drones. The claims are false as usual,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) said on its X fact-check account.
“One rudimentary drone of Taliban regime intruded inside Pakistan airspace near Shinko, Khyber. It was immediately identified and neutralized by the alert Air Defense system of Pakistan Air Force.”
The latest round of fighting upended a Qatari-mediated ceasefire in October that halted earlier clashes between the neighbors, which had killed dozens of civilians, security forces and militants.
China, which shares its western border with both nations, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkiye have tried to mediate the conflict, but intermittent clashes have continued.
Pakistan, which has seen a surge in militancy in recent years, accuses Afghanistan of allowing the use of its soil for attacks in its western regions. Kabul denies this and has accused Islamabad of killing Afghan civilians in cross-border operations.
“Terrorist camps including that of Daesh and more than two dozen other terrorists organizations are factually located, run and patronized from inside the territories under control of Afghan Taliban regime,” Pakistan’s MoIB said.
“The Taliban regime is used to issue such fake and nefarious statements.”
