- Government says three targets, including suicide-bomber training center, destroyed in strikes
- Afghan Taliban says three civilians killed, contradicting Islamabad’s claim of no collateral damage
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Monday its forces destroyed three camps and hideouts in airstrikes along the Afghan border, killing 28 militants, while Kabul reported three civilian deaths inside Afghanistan.
The strikes mark a renewed escalation between the neighboring countries, whose relations have remained strained since they fought their worst clashes in years in February. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of sheltering militants who stage attacks inside Pakistan, an allegation Kabul denies.
The operation followed an assault on a police facility in northwestern Pakistan’s Kohat district that killed 17 police officers among 23 people on Friday. Five Pakistani soldiers were subsequently killed during a firefight with militants in nearby Hangu district on Sunday.
“Based on credible intelligence, selective targeting of Terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Fitna al khwarij and its affiliates has also been carried out in the border region with Afghanistan with precision and accuracy,” Pakistan’s information ministry said in a statement, referring to the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The TTP is separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban and has intensified attacks in Pakistan since ending a ceasefire with Islamabad in late 2022.
The ministry said the strikes destroyed three targets, including a training center for suicide bombers, as well as weapons and ammunition stored at militant camps and hideouts. It added that the airstrikes followed an intelligence-based ground operation in Kohat and Hangu on Sunday in which security forces killed nine militants and injured several others.
It described Afghanistan as a continuing “hub of terrorism” and said the threat to Pakistan emanated from across the border.
“Maximum precautions were taken and it was ensured that no collateral damage occurs,” the ministry said.
Afghan Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat offered a conflicting account, saying Pakistani strikes hit a house in Kunar province and killed three members of one family while injuring four others.
“In Barmal District of Paktika (province), two locations…were bombarded, destroying one shop and one unoccupied house, with no casualties reported,” Fitrat said on X.
Pakistan’s information ministry had warned on Saturday that Islamabad could strike militants inside Afghanistan in response to the recent attacks. It blamed the Kohat assault on fighters it said were operating from Afghan territory.
The TTP and affiliated groups have frequently targeted security forces, law-enforcement personnel and civilians in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southwestern Balochistan provinces, both of which border Afghanistan.
Pakistan has carried out strikes inside Afghanistan on several previous occasions, arguing that Kabul has failed to act against militants using Afghan territory. The Taliban government has condemned such operations as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
