The Pakistani military has carried out several airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan – apparently targeting “terrorist hideouts”. According to the radical Islamic Taliban, at least 46 people were killed. They would include countless women and children.
The attacks were carried out using drones and fighter jets in four areas in the Barmal district of eastern Paktika province, near the border with Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban said on Wednesday, vowing retaliation against their neighbor. The Taliban Defense Ministry condemned the attacks as “barbaric” and “clear aggression” and announced reprisals.
Since the Taliban came to power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021, the number of suspected Islamist-motivated attacks and attacks in Pakistan has increased sharply again. Pakistan’s Taliban group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for several attacks, mainly targeting police officers and other security forces.
Criticism: Taliban provide shelter to foreign fighters
The attacks in Pakistan put pressure on the relationship between the Pakistani government and the Taliban rulers in Kabul. The government in Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of harboring foreign fighters and allowing them to prepare their attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan unhindered. The Taliban government denies this and has said it will ban foreign fighters from the country. But a July UN Security Council report said there were up to 6,500 TTP fighters in Afghanistan. “The Taliban does not consider the TTP to be a terrorist group,” the report said.
Source: Krone
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