Pakistan Says it Struck 10 Sites in Afghanistan After Accusing Kabul of Drone Attacks
Pakistan said early Thursday (September 24) that it had carried out airstrikes on 10 sites in Afghanistan that it said were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, a sharp escalation in recent fighting between the neighbours that threatens mediation efforts.
There was no immediate response from Kabul to the latest strikes, but Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, denied Wednesday (September 23) that Afghan Taliban forces had carried out any attacks. The conflicting statements came two days after Pakistani fighter jets struck sites in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad said were militant hideouts.
The announcement by Pakistani information minister Attaullah Tarar in a post on X came after officials said Afghanistan’s Taliban forces had fired eight drones and shelled Pakistani border posts after Pakistani troops foiled what they described as a cross-border infiltration attempt by militants.
The accounts could not be independently verified. The latest escalations threaten mediation efforts by China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between Kabul and Islamabad.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of allowing militants to operate from its territory and carry out attacks across the border, an accusation Kabul denies.
“Instead of dismantling these networks and taking credible and verifiable action against those using Afghan territory to perpetrate terrorism against Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban regime has chosen to escalate the situation through hostile drone operations against Pakistan,” Tarar said.
“The strikes were deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan,” he added.
Pakistani officials also claimed Wednesday (September 23) that security forces had neutralised eight rudimentary drones launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could enter the northwestern city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham, and that Afghan Taliban forces fired mortars and other heavy weapons at Pakistani border posts. Pakistani forces responded with artillery fire targeting Taliban border posts, mortar sites and defensive positions, they said.
The four officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media about the latest flare-up.
In Monday’s (September 21) airstrikes, Pakistan’s Information Ministry said 28 militants were killed, while Afghan authorities said at least three civilians died and four others were wounded. The UN mission in Afghanistan confirmed the civilian casualties and Kabul formally protested the attack.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Pakistani foreign minister Ishaq Dar expressed concern about what he said was the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan.
Monday’s Pakistani airstrikes followed a shootout with militants in Hangu, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, that killed six Pakistani security personnel. Days earlier, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the nearby city of Kohat.
Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, triggering a 20-hour gunbattle that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers. No group had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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