Pakistan carried out overnight air strikes in Afghanistan, including on the capital Kabul, killing four people and wounding 15, Afghan authorities said on Friday, as tensions between the two neighbours escalated again.
A spokesperson for the Taliban government said Pakistan had also bombed the fuel depot of private airline Kam Air near Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport.
Pakistan’s military has not yet issues a statement yet, but a Pakistani security source confirmed the strikes to news agency AFP. The official said that they targeted militants belonging to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistan Taliban.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the operation targeted “accurate targets involving TTP.”
Islamabad has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of harbouring TTP militants responsible for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan. The Taliban government in Kabul has denied the allegations and insists Afghan territory is not being used for attacks against other countries.
Khalil Zadran, spokesperson for Kabul police, said the bombardment struck residential areas in the capital, leaving four people dead and 15 others injured.
Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on social media platform X that Pakistani strikes also hit the southern province of Kandahar – home to the movement’s supreme leader – as well as the eastern provinces of Paktia and Paktika, which border Pakistan.
Pakistan has maintained that its operations have not caused civilian casualties, though casualty claims from both sides remain difficult to independently verify.
‘Open war’
The United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has said that 56 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations between February 26 and March 5.
About 115,000 people were forced to leave their homes, according to the UN refugee agency.
Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26, when Afghanistan launched an offensive along the frontier, in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air strikes targeting the TTP.
Pakistan then declared “open war” against the Taliban authorities, bombing the capital, Kabul, on February 27.
Since then, clashes have increased in border regions, including overnight Wednesday to Thursday that the Afghan authorities said killed four members of the same family in Khost province.
The Taliban government said on Thursday that four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.
Seven people had been killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday as a result of cross-border clashes between the two sides, according to the authorities in Kabul.
Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the latest deaths happened early Thursday in the village of Sadqo in Khost province, accusing Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian homes and nomads’ tents.
