An Afghan interim government official on Monday confirmed that strikes in the Afghanistan provinces of Paktika and Khost along the Pakistan border have taken place and claimed that eight people were killed.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Afghan rulers, alleged that Pakistani aircraft had carried out the airstrikes. The Foreign Office and the Inter-Services Public Relations have yet to comment on the development. Dawn.com has reached out to both of them.
At “around 3am, Pakistani aircraft bombarded civilian homes” in Khost and Paktika provinces near the border with Pakistan, said Afghan interim government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, adding that all eight people killed were women and children.
Mujahid told Dawn.com that planes had bombed the Laman area in Paktika’s Barmal district and the Afghan-Dubai area in Khost’s Spera district.
Alleging that “houses of common people were targeted”, he said three women and three children were killed in Paktika and a house collapsed while two women were killed in Khost, where a house was destroyed as well.
The strikes come a day after President Asif Ali Zardari vowed retaliation following the martyrdom of seven soldiers, including two officers, in a terrorist attack on a security forces’ post in North Waziristan.
Offering the funeral prayers of the two officers, he asserted that the blood of the martyrs would not go in vain and the country would avenge the deaths. The president said Pakistan would not hesitate to strike back if attacked by anyone at borders or inside its territory.
The Hafiz Gul Bahadar group had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. Security officials say that fighters of the Gul Bahadar group operate from the Afghan side of the border, mostly from Khost.
The Paktika province is located near Pakistan’s South Waziristan District while Khost is situated near North Waziristan.
Mujahid claimed, “The Pakistani side is saying that Abdullah Shah was targeted in the strikes but he lives on the Pakistani side. Members of the same tribe live on both sides and routinely move across the border”.
He stated, “The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns the attacks and describes these as non-serious actions and violation of Afghanistani territory”.
The spokesperson further said: “Pakistan should not blame Afghanistan for their problems and failure to control violent incidents. Such acts can lead to dire consequences which will not be in control of Pakistan.”
The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also confirmed the strikes.
Earlier, Afghan leaders had asked the Taliban members to avoid “provocative statements” about the issue and wait for a response from the spokesman.
Cross-border clashes in Kurram
Cross-border clashes were also reported at Kurram District’s Parachinar, where the Turi Bangash tribe’s elder Jalal Bangash condemned the “baseless attack from Afghanistan”. He said such attacks on Pakistani territory should be refrained from in the future.
Malik Nazeer, a resident of the border area of Borki, told Dawn.com that people on both sides of the border have started evacuating the area.
Former caretaker foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, while extending his prayers for the soldiers martyred in the North Waziristan attack, said the army was “fighting the evil forces of terror originating from Afghanistan”. “This cowardly terror attack will be avenged,” he said in a post on X.
Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwari said the strikes marked a “turbulent page” in Pak-Afghan relations.
“This marks a turbulent page in the relations between the new Pakistani government and the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan must now rue its investment and opportunities on the Taliban,” Sarwari, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in August 2021, said in a post on X.
Two days ago, Pakistan’s Special Representative on Afghanistan Ambassador Asif Durrani said Islamabad has evidence that the TTP was getting money from India through Afghan proxies, estimating that 5,000 to 6,000 TTP militants have taken shelter in Afghanistan.
“If we include their families, then the number goes up to 70,000,” Durrani said on Saturday while speaking at a programme hosted by an Islamabad-based think tank on the Afghan peace process.
The strikes come amid growing contact between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban rulers in recent days.
Pakistani charge d’affaires in Kabul travelled to Kandahar last week to meet Mullah Shirin Akhund, the Taliban governor for southern Kandahar who is one of the close confidants of the Taliban chief.
In January last year, the FO categorically rejected reports claiming that Pakistan had carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.
Earlier this year, Iran had launched attacks in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl in the border town of Panjgur in Balochistan, leading to retaliatory strikes from Pakistan.
Ties between both countries saw a brief breakdown before they resolved to lower tensions and restored diplomatic ties.
Additional input from Javid Hussain and AFP