At least three civilians were killed and four others injured after Pakistani airstrikes hit eastern Afghanistan, according to Afghan officials and the United Nations, in a fresh escalation between the two neighbouring countries after nearly three months of relative calm.
The strikes were carried out early Monday in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Paktika provinces. Afghan authorities said a house in Kunar’s Nurgal district was hit, killing three members of the same family and injuring four others. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan confirmed the deaths of a man, a woman and a girl.
Pakistan gave a different account of the operation. Its government said the airstrikes targeted militant hideouts and other sites linked to armed groups operating along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, claiming that 28 militants, including suicide bombers, were killed. Pakistan also said weapons and ammunition were destroyed.
The strikes followed a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials have blamed militants based in Afghanistan for attacks against security forces and have repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, to operate from Afghan territory. Kabul has denied those accusations.
Tensions between the neighbours have been particularly serious since February, when cross-border fighting intensified following Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan. Hundreds of people have been killed in violence along the frontier this year, according to the Associated Press, while UNAMA has documented more than 1,100 civilian deaths and injuries linked to cross-border violence in Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban officials condemned the latest strikes and warned that Afghanistan would respond. The renewed confrontation could also complicate regional efforts to ease tensions, with neighbouring countries including China having an interest in preventing another prolonged conflict along the volatile border.
The immediate focus now is whether the latest strikes remain a limited military operation or trigger another cycle of cross-border attacks between Pakistan and Afghanistan. With civilian casualties confirmed and both sides maintaining sharply different accounts of what was targeted, the next response from Kabul could determine how quickly tensions escalate.
