Pakistani air strikes kill at least 13 in Afghanistan, Taliban says

By Mohammad Yunus Yawar

KABUL, June 10 (Reuters) – Pakistani air strikes on three Afghan provinces killed at least 13 people, including 11 children, on Wednesday, the Afghan Taliban government said, in a renewal of a conflict that has claimed hundreds of lives this year.

At least 14 others – all of them children and women – were injured in strikes that violated Afghanistan’s airspace and bombed civilian homes in the provinces of Kunar, Khost and Paktika, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Pakistan said the “calibrated strikes” along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border were a response to a recent spate of militant attacks in the country’s northwest.

“Based on credible intelligence, selective targeting of camps and hideouts was carried out with precision and accuracy,” Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X. “Four targets were completely destroyed, including a training centre, a hideout and an ammunition cache.”

Islamabad has blamed Kabul for ​harbouring militants that it says plot attacks in Pakistan. Militant attacks in Pakistan have risen fourfold since 2022, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), the year after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.

‌The ⁠Taliban has denied the allegations and said militancy in Pakistan is an internal problem.

‘WE WILL TAKE REVENGE’

Renewed violence between the ​former allies threatens to disturb a long lull in fighting between Islamabad and Kabul, which fought their worst battle in years in February.

The two countries began engaging in dialogue to ease tensions in March, with China trying to mediate a settlement to the conflict. Since then, fighting has eased but sporadic clashes have continued along the 2,600-km (1,600-mile) border.

Haji Ali Khan, a tribal elder from Khost, said one of the airstrikes hit the home of a local shepherd after midnight, killing 10 people, including women and children, in a village in the province’s Spera district.

“The family whose house was bombed are local villagers. They have no connection with the TTP, nor do they even know them,” he said, referring to the Pakistani Taliban.

“People are demanding that the authorities either provide security for this area or, if they cannot do so, allow the people to defend themselves … Either we will all sacrifice ourselves, or we will take revenge by ourselves.”

(Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul and Mushtaq Ali in Peshawar, writing by Hritam Mukherjee and Saad Sayeed; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Lincoln Feast and Thomas Derpinghaus)