Pakistani forces carried out extensive overnight airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 36 civilians and wounding a further 163, Afghan authorities said on Monday (29 June).
Afghanistan also accused Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian areas. Afghan government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani forces had struck the homes of civilians in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces.
Pakistani officials gave a different account. They said Pakistan’s security forces had carried out ground and air strikes in response to deadly attacks, killing 29 militants.
In a post on social media, Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operation had been carried out in response to multiple attacks by armed groups across the country. On X, he said three targets had been destroyed in precision strikes in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar.
The Taliban said in a statement that Pakistani forces had bombed a house in Mandkhali village in Chamkani district of Paktia, killing an elderly man and a child. It said Pakistani forces then carried out a second strike on villagers who had gathered to rescue survivors, killing 28 people and wounding 158.
The Taliban also said six civilians, most of them women and children, were killed in a Pakistani strike on another house in Olast village in Gian district of Paktika. Pakistani forces destroyed another residential house in Manogai district of Kunar, though it caused no casualties, it said.
Last Saturday, a suicide attack targeted the regional headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary Rangers force in Karachi, killing three members of Pakistan’s security forces. Pakistani forces launched the operation in Afghanistan after that attack.
Pakistan has seen a marked rise in militant attacks in recent years, particularly targeting its security forces, and the Pakistani government has blamed Afghanistan for them.
Islamabad alleges that the banned Pakistani Taliban (TTP) is carrying out the attacks using Afghan soil — a charge Afghanistan has repeatedly denied.
Relations between the two neighbours have sunk to a low amid the recent tit-for-tat strikes, with tensions now at a peak and neither side willing to back down.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report