Pakistan launches deadly strikes on eastern Afghanistan

The strikes follow an attack on a police headquarters in northern Pakistan Friday that killed at least 31 people, including 16 officers.(AFP) — A Pakistani bombardment killed three civilians in eastern Afghanistan, Taliban authorities in Kabul said Monday, with Islamabad saying its forces had targeted “terrorist hubs” along the border.AFP journalists saw a house reduced to rubble in the village of Patan, where dozens of men gathered for the funerals of the victims of Pakistan’s first deadly cross-border strikes since June.Mubin Khan, a farmer who was wounded in the latest bombardment, told AFP: “During the night we were targeted… the house got destroyed.”Khan said three members of his family were killed.The Taliban government’s deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said in a post on X that Nurgal district, where Patan is located, came under attack at around 3 a.m. (10:30 p.m. GMT Sunday).The strike “completely destroyed” a house, killing three and wounding four members of the same family, Fitrat said.Two locations in Paktika province were also bombarded, he said, reporting no casualties.The UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said it had “confirmed at least three civilians, including a man, a woman and a girl, were killed and four injured in apparent airstrikes” in Kunar, the province where Patan is located.“So far in 2026, UNAMA has documented over 1,100 civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan from cross-border armed violence,” it said, calling for “respect for international humanitarian law to prevent civilian casualties.”Islamabad’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry confirmed that Pakistani forces had struck three locations, saying “terrorist hubs” along the border were targeted “based on credible intelligence.”The ministry said “28 terrorists alongside multiple suicide bombers” were killed. That figure was rejected by the Taliban government, which said it was “not true.”Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the “aggression” and said that “Afghans will give it an appropriate response.”The strikes follow an attack on a police headquarters in northern Pakistan Friday that killed at least 31 people, including 16 officers.A local faction, Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, which is linked to the jihadist group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of supporting jihadist groups responsible for deadly attacks on its territory, an allegation the Taliban government in Afghanistan denies.Pakistan’s previous deadly airstrikes in Afghanistan occurred in June and killed around 30 people.Islamabad said at the time it had targeted a TTP faction and killed fighters, while the Taliban government reported civilian casualties.The two neighbors have had particularly tense relations since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Kabul in 2021.Pakistan stepped up its bombings at the beginning of the year, including on the Afghan capital.The deadliest strike, which occurred March 16, hit a drug treatment hospital in Kabul and killed at least 269 civilians, according to the United Nations.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads