“Pakistani Airstrikes in Eastern Afghanistan Reportedly Claim Lives of 46, Including Women and Children, Says Taliban”

PESHAWAR – Pakistan’s airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan killed 46 people, mostly women and children, a Taliban government official said Wednesday.

Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan government, said that six people were also wounded in the Paktika province bordering Pakistan.

A day after Pakistani security officials, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, disclosed to The Associated Press that the operation conducted on Tuesday aimed at disbanding a training facility and eliminating insurgents in the province of Paktika in Afghanistan.

In contrast, a statement released by Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, alleged that 50 individuals, including 27 women and children, lost their lives in the airstrikes.

According to locals in the vicinity, a minimum of 13 casualties were reported to an AP journalist through a phone conversation, with a possibility of the death toll being higher. They added that the injured individuals were taken to a nearby hospital for medical attention.

Pakistan has not commented on the strikes. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani military said security forces killed 13 insurgents in an intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan, a district located along eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province.

The strikes are likely to further spike tensions between the two countries. Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government denounced the attack, saying on Tuesday that most of the victims were refugees from the Waziristan region and promising retaliation.

The TTP is a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

In March, Pakistan said intelligence-based strikes took place in the border regions inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick in recent months. The latest was this weekend when at least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed when TTP attacked a checkpoint in the country’s northwest.

Pakistani officials have accused the Taliban of not doing enough to combat militant activity across the shared border, a charge the Afghan Taliban government denies, saying it does not allow anyone to carry out attacks against any country.