Taliban authorities warned Pakistan on Saturday after five children and a woman were killed in Afghanistan in alleged missile attacks by Pakistani forces in a pre-dawn attack along the border.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan condemns in the strongest terms the bombing and attack from the Pakistani side on the territory of Afghanistan,” government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in an audio message.
“This is brutal and paves the way for hostility between Afghanistan and Pakistan… We are using all options to prevent a recurrence of (such attacks) and to call for respect for our sovereignty,” he said.
The Pakistani side should know that if war begins, it will not be in the interest of either side. It will cause instability in the region.”
Pakistani military officials could not be reached for comment.
Hundreds of civilians in Khost took to the streets chanting anti-Pakistan slogans later on Saturday.
Border tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have risen since the Taliban seized power last year.
Islamabad says militant groups launch attacks on Pakistan from Afghan soil.
The Taliban deny harboring Pakistani militants, and are angry that a fence is being built by Pakistan along its 2,700-kilometre (1,600-mile) border, known as the Durand Line.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it was “extremely concerned” that civilians had been killed by the air strikes, and that the mission was investigating the extent of the casualties.
“Five children and a woman were killed and a man was injured in Pakistani missile attacks in Shelton district of Kunar,” Najibullah Hassan Abdul, Kunar’s regional media director, told AFP.
Ehsanullah, a Shelton resident who goes by the same name as many Afghans do, said the attack was carried out by Pakistani military aircraft. The death toll was confirmed.
According to another Afghan government official, a similar attack was carried out before dawn in the Khost province of Afghanistan near the border.
“Pakistani helicopters bombed four villages near the Durand Line in Khost province,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“Only civilian houses were targeted and there were casualties,” he added, without giving further details.
Afghanistan’s leading private TV channel, Tolo News, showed footage of houses destroyed in the attack in Khost.
“All the targets were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or the government,” Rasoul Jan, a Khost resident, told the channel.
“We don’t know who our enemy is and why we were targeted.”
The Afghan Foreign Ministry said it had summoned the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul to protest the attacks.
“Such military violations must be prevented, including in Khost and Kunar, where these events will be exploited,” Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki told the Pakistani envoy on Saturday, according to a ministry statement.
border tensions
At least seven Pakistani soldiers were killed on Thursday in an ambush by an armed group near the Afghan border.
According to a military statement, a Pakistani military convoy in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, near the Afghan border, came under heavy gunfire during which seven soldiers and four members of the armed group were exposed. killing.
The statement said the ambush took place in Isham district of North Waziristan, a district in the volatile northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The Pakistani army is determined to eliminate the threat of terrorism and the sacrifices of our brave soldiers strengthen our resolve,” the statement added.
No one immediately claimed responsibility.
The incident comes as the Pakistani military said on Thursday that 128 armed fighters had been killed in the region bordering Afghanistan since January.
The army acknowledged the killing of nearly 100 soldiers in such attacks during the same period.
Paying tribute to the dead soldiers, Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said Islamabad “will continue to fight terrorism”.
North Waziristan – once called the “bastion of militancy” – is one of seven former semi-autonomous tribal regions in Pakistan where the military has conducted a series of operations since 2014 to root out the Pakistani Taliban.
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