Kabul, March 13
Afghanistan’s Taliban government early Friday accused Pakistan’s military of targeting homes in overnight airstrikes in Kabul and the southern province of Kandahar, saying at least four civilians were killed as fighting between the neighbors entered its third week.
Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X that Pakistan’s aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport. “This company supplies fuel to civilian airlines as well as to United Nations aircraft,” he said.
Pakistan’s military and government did not immediately comment.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been targeting each other’s military installations since late February, when Kabul said it struck Pakistani posts in response to Pakistani attacks along the border. Pakistan’s military has said its operations targeted the Pakistani Taliban and their support networks along the border, which Afghanistan has never formally recognized.
Both sides have claimed to inflict heavy losses in what has become their deadliest fighting in years, a confrontation Islamabad has described as an “open war ” with Afghanistan.
In his posts on X, Mujahid claimed that Pakistani strikes hit multiple civilian sites and uninhabited locations in Afghanistan’s Paktia and Paktika provinces, as well as other areas. He said the attacks “will not go unanswered.”
Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said at least four civilians, including children, were killed in the city and 15 others were injured.
The total number of casualties around Afghanistan was unclear.
The latest Pakistani strikes came a day after China’s special envoy, Yue Xiaoyong, arrived in Islamabad and met with his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Sadiq, following a visit to Kabul where he met Afghan government officials. Sadiq, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, wrote on X the previous day that he and Yue “discussed threats posed by terrorist groups such as TTP and ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement) to Pakistan and China respectively” and agreed on the need for collective efforts to ensure lasting peace and stability.
Repeated calls from the international community for restraint have had little effect. Pakistan has previously said its strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan are aimed solely at Khawarij, a phrase Islamabad uses for the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Islamabad frequently accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring the group, a charge Kabul denies.
Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, the TTP has intensified attacks inside Pakistan and along the border. Islamabad says its military operations will continue until Kabul takes verifiable steps to curb the TTP and other militants operating from its territory.
The current clashes also ended a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October, when the two neighbors again came close to war. The truce, signed in Qatar, was followed by six days of talks in Istanbul that produced an agreement to extend the ceasefire and hold a third round of negotiations in November.
PTI
