Pakistani military aircraft carried out air strikes across border areas in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan early Monday morning. Afghan authorities reported that the bombardments hit residential structures in Kunar and Paktika provinces, killing three members of a single family and wounding four others.
The civilian death toll stands at three.
Kunar provincial spokesperson Farid Dehqan said the raid targeted the Nurgal district around four in the morning local time, collapsing a home while residents slept. Afghan Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat stated that in addition to the casualties in Kunar, aircraft struck two positions in the Barmal district of Paktika province. Those strikes damaged a commercial shop and an unoccupied residential compound, though no casualties were documented there.
In Islamabad, Pakistan`s Ministry of Information presented a starkly contrasting account, stating that operations neutralized twenty-eight suspected armed militants across three target areas. Pakistani officials maintained that the targets included training hideouts utilized by fighters staging cross-border attacks.
The strikes unfolded days after an armed suicide assault struck a police facility mosque in Kohat, northwestern Pakistan, leaving twenty-one people dead, primarily police officers. Islamabad has repeatedly asserted that fighters responsible for assaults on Pakistani soil operate from Afghan sanctuaries, an allegation the Taliban-led administration in Kabul has rejected as an attempt to outsource internal domestic security failures.
The early Monday bombardment shatters nearly three months of relative calm between the two nations following intense diplomatic friction earlier this year.
