Pakistan’s navy has carried out air strikes in Afghanistan, concentrating on what it referred to as “camps and hideouts” belonging to armed teams behind a spate of current assaults, together with a lethal suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad.
The Afghan Ministry of Defence condemned Sunday’s assaults, saying they “hit a religious school and residential homes” in the border provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika, “resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, including women and children”.
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Afghan sources informed Al Jazeera that at the least 17 individuals have been killed in Nangarhar.
The assaults threaten a fragile ceasefire between the South Asian neighbours, negotiated following lethal border clashes that killed dozens of troopers, civilians and suspected fighters in October final 12 months.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting mentioned in an announcement on X that the nation’s navy carried out “intelligence-based, selective operations” towards seven camps and hideouts belonging to the Pakistan Taliban, often known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its associates.
An affiliate of the Islamic State group was additionally focused in the border area, it mentioned.
The ministry mentioned it had “conclusive evidence” that current assaults in Islamabad, in addition to in the northwestern Bajaur and Bannu districts, have been perpetrated by fighters “on behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers”.
It mentioned Pakistan has repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to take motion to forestall armed teams from utilizing Afghan territory to launch assaults, however that Kabul has didn’t “undertake any substantive action”.
Pakistan “has always strived to maintain peace and stability in the region”, it added, however mentioned the protection and safety of Pakistani residents remained its high precedence.
The Pakistani air strikes on Afghanistan got here hours after a suicide bomber focused a safety convoy in the Bannu district of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two soldiers, together with a lieutenant colonel.
On Monday, a suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden automobile into the wall of a safety submit in the close by Bajaur, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Authorities later mentioned the attacker was an Afghan nationwide.
On February 6, one other suicide bomber detonated his explosives throughout midday prayers on the Khadija Tul Kubra mosque in Islamabad’s Tarlai Kalan space, killing at the least 31 worshippers and wounding 170 others.
The Islamic State group claimed duty for the Islamabad assault.
While bombings are uncommon in the closely guarded capital, the assault on Khadija Tul Kubra was the second such attack in three months, elevating fears of a return to violence in Pakistan’s main city centres.
At the time, the Pakistani navy mentioned the “planning, training, and indoctrination for the attack took place in Afghanistan”.
In its assertion on Sunday, the Pakistani Information Ministry reiterated its name for the worldwide neighborhood to press the Taliban to uphold its commitments underneath the settlement it signed with the United States, in the Qatari capital, Doha, in 2020, to forestall using Afghan territory for assaults towards different nations.
The ministry mentioned the transfer was “vital for regional and global peace and security”.
For its half, the Afghan Ministry of Defence condemned the Pakistani assaults as “a breach of international law and the principles of good neighbourliness”.
It promised to reply.
“We hold the Pakistani military responsible for targeting civilians and religious sites. We will respond to these attacks in due course with a measured and appropriate response,” it mentioned.
Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in current years, a lot of it blamed on the TTP and outlawed Baloch separatist teams. Islamabad accuses the TTP of working from inside Afghanistan, a cost the group denies.
The Taliban authorities has additionally persistently denied sheltering anti-Pakistan armed teams.
Relations between the neighbouring nations have remained tense following the lethal clashes in October. The combating adopted explosions in Kabul, which Afghan officers blamed on Pakistan.
A ceasefire mediated by Qatar on October 19 has largely held, however subsequent talks in Turkiye’s Istanbul failed to supply a proper settlement.
