Kabul, Dec 25 (EFE).- Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Paktika province have killed nearly 50 people, mostly women and children, the Taliban said Wednesday.
The Islamist regime accused the Pakistani military of targeting insurgent camps but striking civilian areas instead.
“Last night there were bombings in four localities of Paktika province, resulting in the death of 46 people, most of them children and women. Moreover, there were six injured,” said Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat in a statement.
The attack destroyed numerous homes, sparking widespread condemnation from Afghan and global leaders.
The Taliban defense ministry said in a statement that the airstrikes in the Barmal district of Paktika province, southeast of Afghanistan, targeted civilian areas.
“Most of the civilians who are refugees from (the Pakistani region of) Waziristan were targeted, and a number of civilians, including children, were martyred and injured as a result of the bombings,” the ministry said.
The Taliban government described the incident as a “brutal act” and “a clear violation of international law” and warned that it reserved the right to defend its territory and people.
A security official in Islamabad told EFE, on condition of anonymity, that the attack targeted several camps in Afghanistan’s Pakitka province of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Taliban group in Pakistan and responsible for numerous attacks on Pakistani security forces.
Pakistan believes that this insurgent group uses Afghan soil to prepare for its attacks. The Pakistani military has not issued any statement on the airstrikes so far.
The strikes came hours after Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, met Afghan acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, and other senior Taliban government officials in Kabul.
The Pakistani envoy had reached the Afghan capital a day earlier.
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the airstrikes as “blatant aggression and violation of Afghan sovereignty.”
He attributed escalating tensions between the two countries to what he called “Pakistan’s wrong policies of strengthening extremism in the region and trying to weaken Afghanistan.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US special envoy for Afghan peace, warned on X (formerly Twitter) that the Taliban “will likely respond” to the Pakistani airstrikes. “The Pakistani envoy is in Kabul. Will General Munir allow him to begin negotiations? Both countries need an agreement to ensure neither threatens the other’s security,” he added.
Former Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar also condemned the attack on X, stating, “We strongly condemn the brutal assault by the Pakistani army on Afghan soil.” He lamented Afghanistan’s weakened defense capabilities, blaming Pakistan for its longstanding role in destabilizing the country. “The Taliban lacks resources to respond to such attacks,” Atmar said.
In March, Pakistan conducted two airstrikes deep inside Afghanistan in the eastern border provinces of Khost and Paktika.
The airstrikes were in response to suicide attacks targeting a military checkpoint in the North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, in which seven soldiers were killed.
The Pakistani ministry of Foreign Affairs had said then that Pakistan had carried out “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations in the border regions inside Afghanistan.”
Afghanistan’s defense ministry said its border forces retaliated in response to the airstrikes, targeting Pakistan’s military points along the disputed border with “heavy weapons.”
Border tensions between the two countries have escalated since the Taliban government seized power in 2021 in Kabul, with Islamabad claiming militant groups are carrying out regular attacks from Afghanistan. EFE
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