By Mohammad Yunus Yawar
KABUL, June 29 (Reuters) - At least 28 civilians were killed and 49 injured in airstrikes carried out by Pakistan on its border with Afghanistan, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on Monday.
Pakistan’s security forces said they had killed at least 29 militants in ground and air operations along the Afghanistan border, while the Afghan Taliban said at least 38 civilians had been killed in airstrikes.
UNAMA said that the number of casualties could rise as hospitals continue to treat the injured.
Sunday’s aerial assault was Pakistan’s second on targets in Afghanistan that it said belonged to militants, and threatened to exacerbate an intermittent conflict between the former allies, who fought their worst battle in years in February.
Pakistan’s airstrikes on three targets in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Kunar killed 25 militants while destroying “large quantities” of weapons and ammunition, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X on Monday.
Four more fighters linked to the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of Pakistan’s Taliban were killed in ground attacks in the Bajaur district of the northern Pakistani border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, confirmed the killing on Sunday of one of its commanders, Khan Ferosh aka Zabul, in the operation in Bajaur.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring militants it blames for plotting attacks in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban denies the accusations, saying militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem.
AFGHAN TALIBAN SAYS STRIKES KILLED CIVILIANS
Afghan government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the strikes had killed 38 civilians and injured 163, including women and children.
He said the bulk of the casualties stemmed from Pakistani jets bombing a home in Paktia province, killing 28 and injuring 158.
Residents were rushing to help the wounded when there was a second strike on the same area, said Khalid Ahmad Sajad, deputy head of the affected district, Samkani.
“Everyone was asleep when the aircraft came and began attacking this house. Inside the house were children, women, men, and elderly people,” resident Mata Khan said.
Afghanistan’s Deputy Information Minister Mohajer Farahi said in a statement that the “attack will certainly be avenged at the appropriate time”.
Tarar said Pakistan was responding to “recent multiple terrorist incidents”, including Saturday’s bomb and gun attack claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar on a Sindh Rangers facility in the southern city of Karachi that killed three of the paramilitary troops and injured four.
“Security forces precisely struck terrorist camps and safe havens,” he said in a message on X.
(Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Sayed Hassib in Kabul, Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Kate Mayberry, Clarence Fernandez, William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson)
