Pakistan says it carried out ground operation, strikes along Afghan border, killing 29 militants
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani security forces Sunday carried out an “intelligence-based” ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 fighters, officials said.
The military did not say how the strikes were carried out, but Pakistan's air force has been involved in the previous targeting of alleged militant hideouts inside Afghanistan.
In a post on X, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country. There was no immediate response from Afghanistan.
It comes a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement Saturday night.
Tarar said Pakistan’s latest operation along the Afghan border targeted the hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term Pakistan uses for the Pakistani Taliban.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence. The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies. The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
The latest operations are likely to further strain already tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Sunday’s cross-border strikes and ground operation came less than three weeks after Pakistan's military launched airstrikes on what it said were militant hideouts in Afghanistan. They ended about a month of relative calm following what Islamabad had described as an “open war” between the neighboring countries, despite international efforts to broker a lasting peace.
Afghanistan has said that the June 10 strikes hit the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika. Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said 13 people were killed, including 11 children, one woman and an elderly man. Pakistan denied targeting civilian areas, saying its strikes were aimed at militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to recent attacks inside Pakistan and that 26 militants were killed.
The latest escalation follows months of tit-for-tat military action between the two countries. Hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out airstrikes inside Afghan territory.
Multiple rounds of internationally mediated peace talks have failed to secure a lasting ceasefire.
China also hosted the two sides in April and Beijing later said Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed not to escalate their conflict and to explore a solution.
Tarar said Sunday the security forces first conducted an intelligence-based ground operation against a group of “terrorists” near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Bajaur, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “As a result of precise and skillful engagement, high value Khawarji Commander Khan Farosh” was killed along with three others.
He said that, acting on intelligence, precise targeting of terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij was also carried out in the border region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. Three targets in Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces were destroyed during the precision strikes, killing 25 terrorists, he said.
Tarar said large quantities of weapons and ammunition stored at the targeted militant compound and hideouts were also destroyed.
He sad “Pakistan has always strived for maintaining peace and stability in the region, but at the same time shall not compromise on the safety and security of our citizens, which remains our top priority”.
Pakistan since last year has carried out multiple strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan, targeting alleged hideouts of TTP and other militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Afghan Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the TTP. Kabul denies the charge.
___
Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Associated Press writers Abdul Qahar Afghan in Kabul; Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
