By Mohammad Yunus Yawar
KABUL, June 29 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s security forces killed at least 29 militants in ground and air operations along the Afghanistan border, it said on Monday, while the Afghan Taliban said at least 38 civilians were killed in airstrikes.
Sunday’s aerial assault was Pakistan’s second on targets in Afghanistan 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 its northern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, Afghanistan’s government spokesperson, Hamdullah Fitrat, said the strikes killed 38 civilians and injured 163, including women and children.
The bulk of the casualties stemmed from Pakistani jets bombing a home in Paktia province, killing 28 and injuring 158, he added.
Residents were rushing to help the wounded when there was a second strike, said Khalid Ahmad Sajad, deputy head of the district of Samkani, hit in the airstrikes.
“While they were carrying out rescue efforts, Pakistani military forces launched a second airstrike on the same location,” he told a press conference.
Tarar said Pakistan was responding to “recent multiple terrorist incidents”, including Saturday’s Jamaat-ul-Ahrar bomb and gun attack on a Sindh Rangers facility in the southern city of Karachi that killed three and injured four of its troops.
“Security forces precisely struck terrorist camps and safe havens,” he said in a message on X.
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.
(Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul, Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Chris Reese, Kate Mayberry and Clarence Fernandez)
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