Cross-border clashes between the two countries escalated on February 26, two days before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, sparking a sprawling war in the Middle East.
Posted on March 12, 2026
The Taliban government says four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.
The deaths reported Thursday bring to seven the number of people killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday in cross-border clashes, according to authorities in Kabul.
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Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along their shared border in retaliation for earlier Pakistani airstrikes against Pakistan’s Taliban, just two days before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, speaking of an expanding regional war.
Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the latest deaths occurred early Thursday in the village of Sadqo in Khost province, and accused Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian homes and nomadic tents.
“Four members of a nomadic family, including a woman and a man, as well as two children, a girl and a boy, were killed and three other children were injured,” he wrote in X.
The provincial governor’s office reported the same death toll.
Pakistan maintains that it does not target civilians and casualty claims from both sides are difficult to independently verify.
In Islamabad, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Hussain Andrabi told reporters that Pakistan had carried out “targeted operations with due diligence, with the principle of firmly controlling and ensuring that no civilian is harmed.”
On Tuesday, Fitrat said three civilians were killed by Pakistani shells in the border province of Paktia. Medical sources gave the same balance to the AFP news agency.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring fighters from the Pakistani Taliban, who have claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan, and the ISIS affiliate (ISIL) in Khorasan province. Afghan authorities deny the accusation.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said 56 civilians have been killed there, including 24 children, in Pakistani military operations between February 26 and March 5.
Pakistani officials have confirmed that about 12 soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the latest clash, while the Taliban claim to have killed more than 150.
According to the UN, some 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes.
