Pakistan says it struck 10 sites in Afghanistan after accusing Kabul of drone attacks

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan said it carried out airstrikes early Thursday on 10 sites in Afghanistan that it said were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, a sharp escalation in their recent fighting that threatens international mediation efforts. In Afghanistan’s southeastern Khost province, Mustaghfir Gurbaz, a spokesman for the province’s governor, said Pakistani airstrikes had targeted several sites, including near the provincial center, at around 3:30 a.m. (7 p.m. Wednesday ET), but that they had not caused any casualties. The announcement of the strikes by Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar in a post on X came after officials said Afghanistan’s Taliban forces had fired eight drones and shelled Pakistani border posts after Pakistani troops foiled what they described as a cross-border infiltration attempt by militants. The Afghan government had no immediate comment. However, Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Wednesday denied that Afghan forces had carried out any drone attacks on Pakistan. The conflicting statements came two days after Pakistani fighter jets struck sites in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad said were militant hideouts. The accounts could not be independently verified. The escalation threatens mediation efforts by China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between Kabul and Islamabad. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of allowing militants to operate from its territory and carry out attacks across the border, an accusation Kabul denies. “Instead of dismantling these networks and taking credible and verifiable action against those using Afghan territory to perpetrate terrorism against Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban regime has chosen to escalate the situation through hostile drone operations against Pakistan,” Tarar said. “The strikes were deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan,” he added. Pakistani officials also claimed Wednesday that security forces had neutralized eight rudimentary drones launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could enter the northwestern city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham, and that Afghan forces fired mortars and other heavy weapons at Pakistani border posts. Pakistani forces responded with artillery fire targeting Taliban border posts, mortar sites and defensive positions, they said. The four officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to the media about the latest flare-up. In Monday’s airstrikes, Pakistan’s Information Ministry said 28 militants were killed, while Afghan authorities said at least three civilians died and four others were wounded. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan confirmed the civilian casualties and Kabul formally protested the attack. On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed concern about what he said was the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan. Monday’s Pakistani airstrikes followed a shootout with militants in Hangu, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, that killed six Pakistani security personnel. Days earlier, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the nearby city of Kohat. Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, triggering a 20-hour gunbattle that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Pakistani authorities blamed the violence on the Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have stepped up their attacks on Pakistani security forces, boosted by the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.