Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan kill 36 civilians, wound over 160

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At least 36 civilians were killed and more than 160 others injured in overnight Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Monday, as tensions between the two neighbouring countries continue to rise.

Pakistan said its security forces carried out a ground operation along the Afghanistan border late Sunday, followed by airstrikes targeting militant hideouts and safe havens. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said 29 militants were killed during the operation, which he described as a response to a series of recent militant attacks inside Pakistan, reports AP.

Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government strongly condemned the strikes, calling them a “cowardly act of aggression” and an “act of brutality.”

Deputy Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani forces first struck a house in Chamkani district of Paktia province, killing an elderly man and a child and injuring several family members.

According to Fitrat, residents rushed to the scene to help the victims, but the area was hit again, killing 28 villagers and injuring 158 others.

In a separate strike on a village in Giyan district of Paktika province, six people, mostly women and children, were killed when another house was hit, he said.

Fitrat also said a civilian home in Kunar province was struck, killing around 30 livestock but causing no human casualties.

Pakistan has faced a sharp increase in attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities blame the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied militant groups for most of the violence. Although separate organizations, the TTP is closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in Kabul in 2021.

The latest Pakistani operation came a day after militants attacked the headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in Karachi, killing three soldiers.

Pakistan’s military said security forces killed three attackers and arrested another suspect, whom it identified as an injured Afghan national. The militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The latest cross-border operation took place less than three weeks after Pakistan carried out similar airstrikes inside Afghanistan targeting what it described as militant bases.

The strikes ended about a month of relative calm following what Islamabad had earlier described as an “open war” between the two neighbours, despite international efforts to reduce tensions.

Cross-border fighting has intensified in recent months, with hundreds of people reported killed since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes following earlier Pakistani air raids.

Several rounds of talks have failed to produce a lasting ceasefire. China hosted negotiations between the two sides in April, after which Beijing said both countries had agreed to avoid further escalation and work toward a peaceful solution.