Pakistan launched two airstrikes into Afghanistan on Monday morning that killed a minimum of eight individuals, Afghan officers mentioned, escalating simmering tensions between the 2 nations.
The pre-dawn strikes have been carried out within the Paktika and Khost provinces in japanese Afghanistan round 3 a.m., Afghan officers mentioned. Three kids have been amongst these killed, in accordance with Taliban officers, who condemned the strikes as a violation of Afghan territory.
The strikes got here amid a surge of assaults by militants in Pakistan following the Taliban’s seizure of energy in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistani officers have blamed militants harbored on Afghan soil and guarded by the Taliban administration for the assaults. Taliban officers have denied these claims.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban administration, mentioned in an announcement on X that his nation “has a long experience of freedom struggle against the superpowers of the world” and “does not allow anyone to invade its territory.”
“Such incidents can have very bad consequences which will be out of Pakistan’s control,” he added.
The Pakistani motion got here two days after militants attacked a navy publish in northwestern Pakistan, close to the border with Afghanistan. In an announcement launched Monday night, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned that the nation had carried out “intelligence-based antiterrorist operations” inside Afghanistan and accused the Taliban administration of aiding militants working in Pakistan.
Over the previous two years, the assertion mentioned, the Pakistani authorities has “repeatedly urged the Afghan authorities to take concrete and effective action to ensure that the Afghan soil is not used as a staging ground for terrorism against Pakistan.”
“However, certain elements among those in power in Afghanistan are actively patronizing T.T.P. and using them as a proxy against Pakistan,” it added, referring to the Pakistani Taliban, often known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or T.T.P.
The strikes and assertion appeared to sign that Pakistan’s newly elected authorities would take a troublesome stance with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan over the militant violence that has roared again in Pakistan in recent times. That violence has shattered a comparatively calm interval for the reason that nation’s navy carried out a large-scale navy operation in 2014 and compelled militants throughout the border into Afghanistan.
After the U.S.-backed authorities in Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021, the tempo of assaults by militants surged in Pakistan, with the assaults themselves changing into bolder. In 2023, the variety of assaults by militant teams in Pakistan rose by practically 20 % in contrast with the earlier yr, in accordance with the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, which screens extremist violence and relies in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
The violence has raised fears of a wider battle breaking out alongside the traditionally contested border, often known as the Durand Line, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has additionally fueled rising tensions between the Pakistani authorities and Taliban officers, who deny providing help to militant teams working in Pakistan, together with their ally, the Pakistani Taliban.
Pakistani officers have repeatedly requested the Taliban administration in Afghanistan to rein within the militants. In response, the Taliban authorities have steered that Pakistan handle the militants’ calls for and have supplied to mediate talks.
The Pakistani authorities’ frustration with the Taliban administration appeared to boil over in September, when the Pakistani authorities introduced a coverage aimed toward expelling the greater than half 1,000,000 Afghans residing illegally in Pakistan.
The strikes on Monday appeared to ship one other message to the Taliban administration that Pakistan’s navy and newly elected authorities would take a more durable stance on the militant violence.
The airstrikes sought to “dispel perceptions of a weak Pakistani state,” mentioned Muhammad Amir Rana, head of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. They additionally “reflect a unified counterterrorism policy between the new civilian government and the military,” he added.
While sporadic cross-border shelling from Pakistan steadily killed civilians in Afghanistan throughout the U.S.-led conflict, the strikes on Monday have been the primary that Pakistan had launched into Afghanistan in practically two years. The final strikes, in April 2022, killed a minimum of 45 individuals within the Khost and Kunar provinces of japanese Afghanistan.
The strikes on Monday have been a part of the navy’s response to the assault on the navy publish on Saturday, a suicide blast that killed seven members of the Pakistani safety forces, in accordance with the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That assault additionally prompted the navy to hold out an operation within the space and kill eight militants, in accordance with an announcement on Monday by the Inter-Services Public Relations workplace, the Pakistani navy’s media arm.
Pakistani authorities officers promised a permanent response to the militants’ assault.
“Pakistan has decided that whoever enters our borders, homes or country to commit terror, we will respond to them strongly, regardless of their identity or country of origin,” President Asif Ali Zardari mentioned whereas talking on the funeral prayers for the military officers killed within the assault.
Safiullah Padshah contributed reporting from Kabul; and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Source: www.nytimes.com