Pakistan carries out deadly airstrikes along Afghanistan border

Pakistan has said at least 25 people were killed in airstrikes it launched targeting militants in eastern Afghanistan, as the Afghan government reported dozens of civilian casualties.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations were aimed at a group that it blames for a deadly weekend attack in Karachi, although Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied their territory harbours militants.

The strikes are the latest flare-up of violence between the two countries whose relationship has been fraught since the Taliban government took power in 2021, and follow a weeks-long war that erupted in February.

The Taliban government said on Monday the airstrikes in three eastern provinces killed or wounded dozens of civilians. Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the military action, calling it a “cowardly act of aggression”.

The strikes come a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement on Saturday night.

Tarar said Pakistan’s latest operation along the Afghan border targeted the hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term Pakistan uses for the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence. The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies.

The neighbouring countries agreed to a ceasefire in March but there have been sporadic attacks since, with Pakistani strikes in June killing 13 people according to Afghan officials.

As Islamabad mediates between the US and Iran to end their war in the Middle East, Pakistan says its battle against militancy at home requires its strikes on Afghanistan.

Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied the country is used by militants and says Pakistani operations have caused a heavy civilian death toll, including a strike at a drug treatment centre in March that the UN said killed hundreds.

Pakistan and Afghanistan went to war in late February, with weeks of violence killing hundreds and displacing tens of thousands, according to the UN.

The conflict saw fierce fighting along the frontier and unprecedented Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities including the capital and southern Kandahar, where the Taliban supreme leader is based.

Mediation from several countries, including China, has failed to produce a lasting resolution between the neighbours, and the frontier has been largely closed since cross-border violence in October.

With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press