Pakistani security forces Sunday carried out a ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 fighters, officials said.
In a post on X, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country.
In Afghanistan, government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistan's attacks resulted in the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians, including women and children.
“We strongly condemn this cowardly act of aggression and consider it a crime and an act of brutality,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence.
The security operation took place a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement Saturday night.
Tarar said Pakistan’s latest operation along the Afghan border targeted hideouts and safe havens of the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban are a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies.
The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
The latest operations are likely to further strain already tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Sunday’s cross-border strikes and ground operation came less than three weeks after Pakistan's military launched airstrikes on what it said were militant hideouts in Afghanistan. They ended about a month of relative calm following what Islamabad had described as an “open war” between the neighboring countries, despite international efforts to broker a lasting peace.
The escalation follows months of tit-for-tat military action between the two countries. Hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out airstrikes inside Afghan territory.
Multiple rounds of talks have failed to secure a lasting ceasefire. China also hosted the two sides in April and Beijing later said Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed not to escalate their conflict and to explore a solution.
Pakistan since last year has carried out multiple strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan, targeting alleged hideouts of TTP and other militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Afghan Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the TTP. Kabul denies the charge.
