Pakistan said it carried out a ground operation and air strikes along its border with Afghanistan on Sunday and Monday, killing 29 militants in response to earlier attacks.
It marks the biggest flare-up in cross-border violence in weeks.
The deaths included four militants killed in the Bajaur district of Pakistan’s western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, while 25 were killed in “precision targeting of terror camps and hideouts” in the border regions of Paktia, Paktika and Kunar, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a post on X.
“Large quantities of weapons and ammunition” stored at the camps and hideouts were also destroyed, he said. Mr Tarar identified the militants as belonging to Jamaat ul Ahrar — which Pakistan described as an India-backed proxy group — and Fitna Al Khawarij.
India’s External Affairs Ministry said the allegation it was backing militant groups was “baseless.”
The Taliban-led government in Kabul condemned the strikes, claiming they killed 36 civilians, including women and children, while injuring 160 in the Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces.
In a post on X, the Afghan government’s deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, said Pakistani fighter jets bombed a civilian residence in Paktia province and “when local residents gathered to conduct rescue operations, the area was bombed for a second time, resulting in the martyrdom of 28 villagers and injuries to 158 others".
Violence on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has intensified in the last month after a brief ceasefire over the Eid holiday in March and unsuccessful mediation by Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and China. The fighting first erupted in February, with Pakistan stepping up cross-border action against militant groups it said are operating from Afghanistan, which has repeatedly denied providing sanctuary to militants.
Pakistan has also repeatedly blamed India for militant attacks in the country, an accusation that India rejects.
“Pakistan’s counter-terror operations in Afghanistan are the result of a diplomatic impasse,” said Iftikhar Firdous, editor for The Khorasan Diary, which specialises in tracking non-state actors and political economy. “No track of diplomatic engagement or international intervention has been able to yield results.”
Firdous said the violence signals that the relationship between the two countries is shifting to one of “managed confrontation.”
“Neither side appears to seek a full-scale war, but both have shown they are willing to use calibrated force while keeping diplomatic channels technically open,” he said.
In March, Afghanistan said Pakistani strikes killed at least 400 people at a hospital in Kabul, the deadliest attack so far. Pakistan had said its strikes were aimed at a military infrastructure. Relations between the two countries have soured since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Earlier, Pakistan said its forces had foiled a militant attack on a camp in the port city of Karachi on Saturday night, killing three assailants and capturing one who was wounded, according to government statements.
