KABUL: Pakistan’s government said on Monday (Sep 21) that it launched airstrikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, killing at least 28 militants, with one security official saying two Afghan provinces were targeted.
Hours earlier, Afghan Taliban officials accused Islamabad of killing at least three civilians in overnight airstrikes on Afghan territory.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed the deaths of three civilians: a man, a woman and a girl.
The attacks broke nearly three months of relative calm.
Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesperson of the Taliban-run Afghan government, said the Afghan side “will respond appropriately to this aggression”.
A Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes happened in the Afghan provinces of Paktika and Kunar. Pakistan’s Information Ministry gave the death toll but its military did not immediately comment.
Relations between the former allies have been strained for years, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of harbouring militants who stage cross-border attacks. Conflict escalated this February and hundreds died in airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery fire in the first half of the year.
Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies harbouring anti-Pakistani insurgents and says militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem. The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires in Kabul and handed him a protest note.
A police facility in the northwestern Pakistani district of Kohat was attacked by militants on Friday, and at least 24 people were killed.
Previous militant attacks in Pakistan have often prompted retaliatory strikes.
A separate exchange of fire on Sunday killed six Pakistani soldiers and eight militants in the adjacent district of Hangu near the Afghan border, according to a Pakistani army statement.
At least one house in Kunar province was hit in the strikes on Monday, killing three members of the same family and injuring four others, Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said in a post on X.
In Paktika, two locations were bombed, and a shop and an unoccupied house destroyed, he added.
“Everyone was frightened,” said Mula Khan, a 55-year-old resident who heard the strikes.
