Islamabad/Kabul: Pakistan has claimed that it carried out strikes on seven sites along its border with Afghanistan, targeting hideouts of Afghan-based militant group it blames for recent suicide attacks.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, in a statement posted on X before dawn on Sunday, cited three attacks since the start of Ramadan, and said Pakistan “carried out intelligence-based selective targeting of seven Terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Pakistani Taliban”, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its affiliates in the border region.
He said that Pakistan had also targeted an affiliate of the Islamic State group, without indicating where the strikes were carried out, as reported by Mint.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, however, claimed that Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s “civilian compatriots in Nangarhar and Paktika provinces, martyring and wounding dozens of people, including women and children”.
Pakistan had also conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan in October to target militant hideouts.
These strikes w
ere carried out in response to a suicide blast at a Shiite mosque in Islamabad two weeks ago and other more recent suicide bombings in northwest Pakistan, including one on Saturday, Tarar said.
It has been reported that the Islamic State group had claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing, which killed at least 40 people and wounded more than 160 in the deadliest attack on Islamabad since the 2008 Marriott hotel bombing.
A recent suicide attack targeted a security convoy in the Bannu district in the northwest, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel. This took place hours before the strike by Pakistan.
Earlier, a suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a security post in Bajaur district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. The blast caused part of the compound to collapse, killing 11 soldiers and a child, and authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national.
Pakistan has called on the international community to urge Kabul to fulfil its commitments not to support hostile actions against other countries, under the Doha agreement reached last year.
The two countries have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021.
There have been deadly border clashes in October, in which more than 70 people were killed, and hundreds wounded. These clashes ended with a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey.