JNS: At least 19 Pakistani soldiers and three Afghan civilians were killed in intense border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan, media reports confirmed on Saturday. The violence erupted following a series of airstrikes by Pakistan in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, which resulted in the deaths of 51 people, including women and children, earlier in the week.
Afghan border forces launched retaliatory attacks, setting fire to multiple Pakistani military posts in the Ali Shir district of Khost province and capturing two Pakistani posts in the Dand-e-Patan district of Paktia province, according to reports from Xinhua news agency.
The Afghan Ministry of Defence, under the Taliban regime, confirmed targeting “several points” in Pakistan, although it did not explicitly name the country. In a social media post, the Ministry stated the strikes were aimed at locations believed to be sources of attacks against Afghanistan, without identifying the specific territory.
Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi, when questioned about the statement, refused to confirm whether the strikes targeted Pakistani territory, referring instead to “the other side of the hypothetical line” and reiterating Afghanistan’s rejection of the Durand Line, the border drawn during British colonial rule.
Tensions between the two nations have been rising recently, fueled by Pakistan’s accusations that Afghanistan’s Taliban government is harboring militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, which operates from Afghanistan’s southern provinces. The Taliban has denied these accusations, further straining relations between the two neighboring countries.
