Pakistan has attacked militant hideouts in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province overnight, as fighting that broke out between the two neighbors late last month showed no signs of abating.
The cross-border attacks, which included Pakistani airstrikes in Kabul, are the deadliest yet among the countries. Islamabad has referred to the conflict as an “open war,” raising concerns about regional stability as the US-Israel conflict with Iran engulfs the Middle East and beyond.
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Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistan had attacked two locations: a site used by security guards during the day that was empty at night and a drug rehabilitation center that suffered minor damage. He said there were no casualties, but the attacks showed that Pakistan “continues to invade and fuel the fires of war.”
Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said it carried out an attack on a military camp in the South Waziristan area of Pakistan on Sunday in retaliation for the attacks in Kandahar. He claimed that the attack destroyed most of the camp’s command center and other facilities, and caused heavy casualties to the Pakistani army.
Pakistan’s Information Ministry rejected the claims as “propaganda”, saying that a small drone was shot down and that “no military installations or infrastructure were hit”.
Afghanistan also said it carried out operations inside Pakistan across the border with Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, claiming to have captured a Pakistani military outpost and killed several soldiers. Pakistan also rejected those claims.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers of harboring militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban, that have carried out attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan denies the accusation and insists that it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries.
The latest fighting broke out in late February, when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan days earlier that it said had killed only civilians. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar last October after fighting that killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.
On Sunday, a mortar fired from Afghanistan destroyed a house in Bajaur, a district in northwest Pakistan, killing at least four members of one family and wounding two others, local government official Adnan Khan said.
Both sides have accused each other of attacking civilians and dozens have been killed. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday that Afghanistan’s government had “crossed a red line” by launching drone attacks on civilian areas in Pakistan, and hours later the country allegedly carried out strikes on an Afghan drone storage facility.
