KABUL — Pakistani forces' overnight ground operations and airstrikes killed at least 36 civilians in Afghanistan and wounded more than 160 others, Afghan officials said Monday, as tensions between the two neighbors escalated further.
Pakistani security forces carried out a ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border late Sunday, followed by strikes against what Islamabad described as militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 fighters, Pakistan's Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said. Pakistan said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country, including an assault on the paramilitary Rangers' regional headquarters in Karachi that killed three soldiers. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack.
Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesperson for Afghanistan's Taliban government, said Pakistani forces struck a home in Paktia province's Chamkani district, killing an elderly man and a child. When residents gathered to assist the wounded, the area was struck again, killing 28 villagers in total and wounding 158, he said. A separate strike in Paktika province's Giyan district killed six people, mostly women and children, Fitrat said. A strike in Kunar province damaged a civilian home and killed about 30 livestock but caused no human casualties, according to Fitrat.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it had verified 28 fatalities, including 22 in the Paktia strike and six in Paktika, and corroborated two child injuries in Kunar. Afghan officials' overall tally put the death toll at 36.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Information and Culture condemned the strikes as a "cowardly act of aggression," with deputy minister Hayatullah Mohajer Farahi saying Kabul would respond "in due time." Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it summoned Afghanistan's top diplomat in Islamabad to protest the involvement of Afghan nationals in recent attacks.
The strikes follow months of cross-border fighting since February. This is a developing story.
