Peshawar: Pakistan said early Thursday that it had carried out airstrikes on 10 sites in Afghanistan that it said were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, marking a sharp escalation between the neighbours that threatens mediation efforts by regional powers.
The announcement by Information Minister Attaullah Tarar came on X after officials said Afghanistan's Taliban forces had fired eight drones and shelled Pakistani border posts after Pakistani troops foiled what they described as a cross-border infiltration attempt by militants.
There was no immediate response from Kabul to the latest Pakistani strikes inside Afghanistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's Taliban government, denied Wednesday that Afghan Taliban forces had carried out any attacks. The conflicting statements came two days after Pakistani fighter jets struck sites in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad said were militant hideouts.
Pakistani officials said Wednesday that security forces had neutralised eight rudimentary drones allegedly launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could enter the northwestern city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham.
This week's airstrikes ended several weeks of relative calm following months of cross-border hostilities. Also, earlier this month, Pakistani security forces killed 15 militants attempting to cross into the country from Afghanistan.
According to four local Pakistani officials, the militants' infiltration attempt focused on areas near Afghan border posts in Paktia and Nangarhar provinces, allegedly with support from the Afghan Taliban forces.
The officials referred to the militants as Fitna-ul-Khawarij, a term Islamabad uses for the Pakistani Taliban, a group that is separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan's Taliban government of allowing militants to operate from its territory and carry out attacks across the border, an accusation that Kabul denies.
After Pakistani troops thwarted the infiltration attempt, Afghan Taliban forces allegedly fired mortars and other heavy weapons at Pakistani border posts, the four officials said. Pakistani forces responded with artillery fire, targeting Taliban border posts, mortar sites, and defensive positions.
The officials said Afghan Taliban forces subsequently abandoned several positions and suffered casualties. The four officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media about the latest flare-up.
The accounts could not be independently verified. The latest escalations threaten mediation efforts by China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between Kabul and Islamabad.
In Monday's airstrikes, Pakistan's Information Ministry said 28 militants were killed, while Afghan authorities said at least three civilians died and four others were wounded. The UN mission in Afghanistan confirmed the civilian casualties, and Kabul formally protested the attack.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar expressed concern about what he said was the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan.
Monday's Pakistani airstrikes followed a shootout with militants in Hangu, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border, that killed six Pakistani security personnel. Days earlier, a suicide bomber struck a mosque inside a police compound in the nearby city of Kohat.
Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, triggering a 20-hour gun battle that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers. No group had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Pakistani authorities blamed the violence on the Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups. The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have stepped up their attacks on Pakistani security forces, boosted by the Afghan Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan in 2021.