Conflict erupts between Pakistan and Taliban in Afghanistan
Taliban attack Pakistani border guards (photo: Getty Images)
Afghan Taliban forces have targeted “several locations” in neighboring Pakistan. This comes a few days after Pakistani planes carried out strikes on camps in Afghanistan, according to Reuters and France 24.
Earlier this week, Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that Pakistan had shelled four districts in Barmal district in eastern Paktika province.
According to him, the total number of dead was 46 people, most of whom were children and women. In a statement, the Defense Ministry condemned the strikes and said it would not leave “this cowardly act unanswered.”
A senior Pakistani security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes targeted “terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan using jets and drones.”
It is important to note that this strike came after the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and sharing a common ideology with their Afghan counterparts, had shortly before claimed an attack on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which, according to Pakistani intelligence, killed 16 soldiers.
Response to air strikes on Afghanistan
Today it became known that Afghan Taliban forces attacked “several points” in Pakistan.
The Defense Ministry's statement did not specify Pakistan, but said that the strikes were carried out outside a “hypothetical line.” This is an expression used by Afghan authorities to refer to the border with Pakistan, which they have long disputed.
“Several points along the hypothetical line, which served as centers and hideouts for the attackers and their supporters who organized and coordinated the attacks in Afghanistan, were fired upon in response from the southeastern part of the country,” the ministry said.
Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khowarazmi said they do not consider these territories Pakistani.
“We don't consider it Pakistan's territory, so we can't confirm the territory, but it was on the other side of the hypothetical line,” he said.
Afghanistan has for decades rejected the border known as the Durand Line, drawn by the British colonial authorities in the 19th century through the mountainous and often lawless tribal belt between the territory of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Last month, due to the deteriorating security situation in Islamabad and other cities of Pakistan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine recommended that Ukrainian citizens exercise maximum caution.
