Pakistan carried out overnight airstrikes in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Helmand provinces on Thursday, the two governments and the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said, deepening a cross-border conflict that has flared repeatedly this year.
Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft hit civilian homes in Kunar’s Shultan area and Helmand’s Garmsir district, killing nine people — including women and children — injuring 11 and destroying three homes. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it had confirmed at least 10 civilians killed, most of them children, and nine people injured. UNAMA did not name the attacker; no other country has claimed the raids.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information confirmed the strikes and described them as intelligence-driven, “well planned and calibrated” attacks on militant hideouts linked to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. It said initial reports suggested 22 militants were killed and weapons caches destroyed, and that maximum precautions were taken to avoid collateral damage. Islamabad again accused Kabul of harboring groups that attack Pakistan; the Taliban deny that charge and call Pakistan’s militancy an internal problem. Neither side’s death toll could be independently verified.
An eyewitness in Garmsir told the BBC (opens in new tab) jets arrived around 3:30 a.m. local time and that after his family fled, a third bomb hit a neighbor’s house. The overnight raids were the third Pakistani air operation inside Afghanistan in about two weeks, following earlier strikes that hit Kandahar and other provinces. Open conflict between the two neighbors erupted last October, RFE/RL (opens in new tab) reported; fighting escalated sharply in February, when Pakistan declared an “open war” with Afghanistan, and a China-mediated ceasefire in March did not hold, according to the BBC (opens in new tab).