Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan killed 46 civilians, mostly women and children, a Taliban government official reported on Wednesday. The strikes, conducted late Tuesday, targeted Paktika province, with Pakistani security sources describing the operation as an effort to dismantle a training facility and neutralize insurgents.
However, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP), claimed the death toll was 50, including 27 women and children, and warned of retaliation.
Pakistan has yet to issue an official statement regarding the airstrikes. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Pakistani military announced that 13 insurgents were killed during an intelligence-led operation in South Waziristan, a district bordering Afghanistan’s Paktika province.
Afghanistan’s foreign office said it had summoned Pakistan’s head of mission in Kabul to deliver a formal protest note to Islamabad on the bombing by Pakistani military aircraft, warning the diplomat of consequences of such actions.
“Afghanistan considers this brutal act a blatant violation of all international principles and an obvious act of aggression,” Enayatullah Khowrazmi, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defence, said in a statement. “The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered.”
A Pakistani official with knowledge of the matter, but declining to be named, told Reuters Pakistan had carried out airstrikes against a camp of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) Islamist militant group.
TTP pledges allegiance to, and gets its name from the Afghan Taliban, but is not directly a part of the group that rules Afghanistan. Its stated aim is to impose Islamic religious law in Pakistan, as the Taliban has done in Afghanistan.
A major TTP attack in Pakistan’s South Waziristan area, which borders the location of the alleged camp targeted in Afghanistan, killed 16 Pakistani security personnel on Saturday.
Afghanistan’s defence ministry identified those killed in Pakistan’s bombardment as “mostly Waziristani refugees” – indicating that they were from Pakistan’s Waziristan territory.
The neighbours have a strained relationship, with Pakistan saying that several TTP attacks that have occurred in its country have been launched from Afghan soil – a charge the Afghan Taliban denies.
Their relationship was complicated in March when the Taliban accused Pakistan of carrying out two airstrikes on its territory, killing five women and children.
Pakistan said at the time it had conducted “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations” in Afghanistan but did not specify the nature of the operations.
Team BharatShakti (With inputs from Reuters)
