Afghanistan says Pakistan air raids killed 13 people, including children

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan’s military of killing at least 13 people, most of them children, in air attacks on the provinces of Kunar, Khost and Paktika.

The attacks late on Tuesday were the deadliest in weeks and follow a period of relative calm at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, said in a post on X that the victims of the attacks included 11 children, one woman and an elderly man.

“We strongly condemn this humanitarian crime and act of aggression,” he added.

Islamabad has previously claimed attacks in Afghanistan, saying it targeted fighters from the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP.

An official in the Khost province told the AFP news agency that a house in the Spera district was struck, killing nine people and wounding 10 others. In the neighbouring Paktika province, two residents told AFP that a separate attack killed three civilians in the Barmal district. The air raid hit a home, and those killed were children, one of the residents said.

The air attacks came a day after suspected fighters from the TTP attacked a security post in the Hasan Khel area of northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan. The attack triggered an intense gun battle in which six members of the Federal Constabulary – a federal Pakistani paramilitary force – were killed and several others wounded, according to Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been fraught since the Taliban took power for a second time in 2021, with fighting escalating sharply in late February after Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani air attacks.