Kabul:
The Taliban have said that Pakistan’s overnight strikes inside Afghanistan, near their border areas, killed at least 13 people, including 11 children, and injured 14 others. Taking to X, Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced the airstrikes, which he said targeted the Afghan provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika. He also shared photographs of the young victims of the deadliest Pakistani attack in weeks.
The overnight attacks happened while the victims were asleep, not giving them any chance to escape the bombardment.
“Last night, the Pakistani military once again violated Afghanistan’s airspace and bombed civilian homes in the provinces of Kunar, Khost, and Paktika,” Mujahid wrote on X.
“As a result of these attacks, 11 children, one woman, and one elderly man were killed, while 14 other women and children were injured.”
Quoting an official in Afghanistan’s Khost province, news agency AFP reported that a house in Spera district was struck, killing nine people and wounding 10 others.
In neighbouring Paktika province, two residents said a separate attack killed three civilians in Barmal district. The strike hit a home, and those killed were children, one of the residents said.
Afghan-Pakistan Relations
There was no immediate acknowledgement of the strikes from Pakistan, but Islamabad has repeatedly said attacks on Afghanistan are aimed at terrorists who have carried out attacks on its territory.
The latest strikes are the deadliest in weeks and follow a period of relative calm at the border after conflict between the two countries erupted in late February, when escalation saw fierce fighting along the frontier and unprecedented Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities — including the capital, Kabul, and southern Kandahar, where the supreme leader is based.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fraught since the Taliban took power for a second time in 2021. Islamabad has accused Kabul of harbouring terrorists who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban, which has ruled Afghanistan since it seized power in the country in 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops.
Afghan officials deny the charge and counter that Pakistan harbours hostile groups and does not respect its sovereignty.
According to a United Nations report published last month, at least 372 Afghan civilians were killed and 397 others wounded in that conflict in the first three months of this year.
