Afghanistan’s foreign office on Wednesday said it summoned Pakistan’s head of mission in Kabul to deliver a formal protest over strikes carried out by Pakistani forces a day earlier.
Pakistan’s security officials late Tuesday night had said that fighter jets bombed four locations, said to be camps of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, targeting and neutralising several suspected terrorists. The government has yet to issue an official statement on the strikes.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been strained due to frequent border skirmishes and Islamabad repeatedly demanding Kabul to take action against TTP for using Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan. Kabul denies the allegations.
Sources said that TTP camps in the Murgha and Laman areas of Bernal district were targeted, including one that was used by Sher Zaman alias Mukhlis Yar, Commander Abu Hamza, Commander Akhtar Muhammad and the head of TTP’s media arm, Umar Media.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, while talking to the media on Wednesday, claimed that 46 people were killed in the strikes, including “locals and some Pakistani displaced persons from Waziristan tribal regions, who had been living in Afghanistan’s border areas in camps”. He said the Shin Stargi Adda, Sorzaghmi, Almasti and Marghai areas in the Paktika province were bombed.
The strikes came the same day that a Pakistani delegation, led by Special Representative Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq, met interim Interior Minister Sirajudddin Haqqani and Foreign Minister Amir Muttaqi in Kabul to resume diplomatic dialogue after a year-long hiatus.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said it summoned the Charge d’Affaires of the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday afternoon and handed over a formal protest note regarding the bombing “near the Durand Line in the Bermal district of Paktika province”.
The ministry, in its statement, said the “violation” was condemned and alleged that the move was “an attempt by certain Pakistani factions to create distrust between the two countries” as the two sides engaged in talks.
Reuters quoted a senior Pakistan security official as saying that the strikes were on “terrorist hideouts” using jets and drones and that they killed at least 20 TTP terrorists.
“Arguments from Afghan officials claiming civilians are being harmed are baseless and misleading,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In a post on X by the Afghan defence ministry on Tuesday night, the Afghan Taliban regime had confirmed reports of the strike carried out by Pakistani forces but claimed that the dead and injured included several children and other civilians.
