Pakistan launched new airstrikes on Afghanistan early Wednesday in a further escalation of months of fighting between the neighbors that has killed hundreds of people. The strikes, which Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers said hit the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika, shattered more than a month of calm in the war.
Taliban regime spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News producer Sami Yousafzai that 13 people were killed, including 11 children, one woman and an elderly man, and that 14 other civilians were wounded.
Pakistan confirmed it had carried out strikes but said they were “precise and calibrated,” targeting militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to recent terror attacks inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials said 26 militants were killed.
The two sides often give widely differing casualty figures.
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Pakistan and Afghanistan have engaged in deadly fighting since late February, when Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes. Several rounds of internationally mediated peace talks have failed to produce a lasting truce.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants that carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, including the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban, which has ruled Afghanistan since it retook power over the country in 2021, amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.
Taliban officials in Kabul deny Pakistan’s allegations.
In a post on X, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said “precise and calibrated strikes were carried out along Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas on hideouts and safe havens of masterminds and planners” of attacks carried out by the TTP and other insurgents in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, bordering Afghanistan.
Tarar said four targets were destroyed in the operation: a training center, a hideout, an ammunition cache and a facility belonging to militant commanders. He added that Pakistan always strives to maintain peace and stability in the region, but that the safety and security of its citizens remain the priority.
The country’s counterterrorism campaign will continue “at full pace to wipe out the menace of foreign-sponsored and supported terrorism,” he said.
Pakistan’s Information Ministry dismissed the Taliban regime’s claims of civilian casualties as “peddling propaganda.”
Debate over death tolls
The wide gap in the death tolls reported by the two sides is emblematic of the information war playing out between the two countries: Afghanistan says the casualties were all civilians, Pakistan says they were all militants.
Sources on the ground told CBS News producer Sami Yousafzai that women and children were killed in the bombardment on Wednesday, however.
A member of the Afghanistan Red Crescent in Khost province told CBS News that a house belonging to a family in the village of Manah was struck Tuesday night during the bombing.
The aid worker said a family “had been living there for a long time,” and had no known connection to military activities.
“At least nine people were killed – eight children, a woman,” he said. “The bodies of innocent children remained at the site until morning when we arrived.”
Aziz Khan Safi, a resident of Kunar province, told CBS News that homes belonging to local families were hit during the overnight strikes. “One child was killed and three others were wounded,” he said.
“Open war”
The Pakistani strikes on Wednesday came a day after suspected TTP militants attacked a security post in Pakistan’s Hasan Khel area, in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, triggering an intense gunfight in which six members of the Federal Constabulary were killed and several others wounded, according to Pakistan’s Interior Ministry.
Local authorities in Pakistan said Tuesday that security forces killed eight attackers and thwarted an attempt to seize the checkpoint.
Pakistan in February declared it was in “open war” with Afghanistan following a surge in militant attacks on civilians and security forces inside Pakistan. Afghanistan then said a Pakistani airstrike in March hit a drug treatment center in Kabulkilling more than 400 people.
Pakistan disputed that death toll and denied targeting civilians, saying it struck an ammunition depot.
Masood Khan, an Islamabad-based security analyst, says Pakistan’s priority is ending attacks by the TTP. He said the solution to the conflict is Afghanistan enforcing Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada’s order for the TTP to stop its attacks on Pakistan.
“That decree must be implemented sincerely and faithfully,” he said.