Pakistan Strikes Militant Targets in Afghanistan; Kabul Reports Civilian Deaths

Pakistani fighter jets struck what security officials described as suspected militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, with Islamabad claiming 28 militants were killed while Afghan authorities said three civilians died and four others were wounded.

The two accounts could not be independently verified. Two Pakistani security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly, put the death toll at 28 suspected militants. Pakistan's military did not immediately issue a statement on the operation.

Afghan deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the strikes took place around 3 a.m. in Nurgal district of Kunar province and Barmal district of Paktika province, both near the frontier. Citing preliminary information, he said a house belonging to a villager named Noor Ahmad in Nurgal's Pathan village was destroyed, killing Ahmad and two family members and wounding four other relatives. In the Rakhah and Tor Kundi areas of Barmal, he said, a shop and an unoccupied house were destroyed without causing casualties.

Afghan Taliban government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid condemned the strikes in a post on X, calling them a repetition of "aggression and oppression" and accusing Pakistani military circles of acting to divert attention from their country's security failures. He said there would be a response.

The raids marked a renewed escalation between the neighbours and raised the prospect of further cross-border hostilities, potentially complicating mediation efforts by regional countries including China. They followed a warning from Pakistan that it could target militants inside Afghanistan after two deadly attacks on its security forces in recent days.

On Sunday, six Pakistani security personnel, including two army officers, were killed in a shootout with militants in Hangu, a district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border. On Friday, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the city of Kohat and eight gunmen stormed offices, triggering a 20-hour gunbattle. Pakistani officials said at least 21 people, most of them police officers, were killed and more than 100 wounded.

Pakistan's Information Ministry warned on Saturday that the country could strike militants inside Afghanistan in response, blaming the Kohat attack on militants it said were based there and accusing the Afghan Taliban government of sheltering and supporting groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan. The ministry said Pakistan had "both the will and the capability to eliminate terrorist threats wherever they are," and called on Kabul to take credible, verifiable and sustained measures to dismantle what it describes as militant sanctuaries and recruitment and training networks.

No group had claimed responsibility for the Kohat or Hangu attacks by the time of Monday's strikes. Suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which has intensified attacks on police and other security forces in recent years. The TTP is separate from but allied with Afghanistan's Taliban, which returned to power in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban government in Kabul of sheltering TTP leaders and allowing cross-border attacks, allegations Afghan authorities deny.

Militant attacks targeting Pakistan's police and security forces have surged in recent years, and hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out airstrikes inside Afghan territory.