Source : Perth Now news
Pakistani security forces have carried out an “intelligence-based” ground operation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, followed by “calibrated strikes” against militant hideouts and safe havens, killing 29 fighters, officials say.
The military did not say how the strikes on Sunday were carried out, but Pakistan’s air force has been involved in the previous targeting of alleged militant hideouts inside Afghanistan.
In a post on X, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country. There was no immediate response from Afghanistan.
It comes a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers.
Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement Saturday night.
Tarar said Pakistan’s latest operation along the Afghan border targeted the hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term Pakistan uses for the Pakistani Taliban.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years.
Authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and allied militant groups for most of the violence.
The TTP is a separate militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allies. The Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.
The latest operations are likely to further strain already tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Sunday’s cross-border strikes and ground operation came less than three weeks after Pakistan’s military launched airstrikes on what it said were militant hideouts in Afghanistan.
They ended about a month of relative calm following what Islamabad had described as an “open war” between the neighbouring countries, despite international efforts to broker a lasting peace.
Afghanistan has said that the June 10 strikes hit the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika. Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said 13 people were killed, including 11 children, one woman and an elderly man. Pakistan denied targeting civilian areas, saying its strikes were aimed at militant hideouts and infrastructure linked to recent attacks inside Pakistan and that 26 militants were killed.
The latest escalation follows months of tit-for-tat military action between the two countries. Hundreds of people have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out airstrikes inside Afghan territory.
