KABUL: Pakistan’s military killed at least 70 militants in strikes along the border with Afghanistan early Sunday, targeting what it described as hideouts of Pakistani militants it blamed for recent attacks inside the country, the deputy interior minister said. Talal Chaudhry, Pakistan’s deputy interior minister, told Geo News that at least 70 militants were killed in the strikes. He offered no evidence. Pakistan’s state-run media later reported that militant casualties from the strikes jumped to 80.The Afghan defence ministry said that “various civilian areas” in the provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika in eastern Afghanistan were hit, including a religious madrassa and multiple civilian homes. The statement called the strikes a violation of Afghanistan’s airspace and sovereignty. Afghan govt spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid earlier on X said the attacks “killed and wounded dozens, including women and children.” Mawlawi Fazl Rahman Fayyaz, the provincial director of the Afghan Red Crescent Society in Nangarhar province, said 18 people were killed. A Taliban govt security source said that Pakistan’s claim of killing at least 80 militants was false and imaginary. Afghanistan’s ministry of foreign affairs summoned Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul and handed him a note of protest over the Pakistani strikes. In a statement, the ministry said protecting Afghanistan’s territory is the Islamic Emirate’s “Sharia responsibility” and warned that Pakistan would be responsible for the consequences of such attacks.On Sunday, villagers were seen clearing rubble in Nangarhar following airstrikes, while mourners were preparing for funerals of those killed. Habib Ullah, a local tribal elder, said those killed in the strikes were not militants. “They were poor people who suffered greatly. Those killed were neither Taliban, nor military personnel, nor members of the former govt. They lived simple village lives,” he told Associated Press.Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar wrote on X that the military conducted “intelligence-based, selective operations” against seven camps belonging to the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, and its affiliates.Hours before the Pakistani strikes, a suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in the border district of Bannu in Pakistan’s northwest, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel.
