Pakistan carried out intelligence-based military airstrikes along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border on Sunday, targeting militant hideouts in response to a series of recent attacks on Pakistani soil, government sources and officials said. The strikes were aimed at camps and positions associated with militant groups blamed for violence inside Pakistan.
According to security sources, Pakistani forces struck seven locations in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar, Paktika and Khost provinces, hitting what Islamabad described as hideouts and operational bases linked to banned armed groups. Pakistan’s State Minister for Interior, Talal Chaudhry, said in a televised statement that the operations resulted in the neutralization of nearly 80 terrorists.
Officials listed several targeted sites, including facilities named New Centre No. 1 and No. 2 in Nangarhar, the Khwariji Maulvi Abbas Centre in Khost, and multiple other camps in the Paktika and Nangarhar regions that Islamabad claims were used by militants to plan and launch attacks.
State Minister Chaudhry reiterated Pakistan’s position that cross-border militancy poses a persistent threat, asserting that Kabul has failed to prevent militant groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan. He said the airstrikes were justified as part of Pakistan’s right to defend its citizens and that ongoing intelligence-based operations within Pakistan had already led to thousands of arrests and actions against suspected militants.
The Pakistani government’s account was supported by security officials who described the strikes as “precise and accurate,” and explicitly linked them to a recent spate of suicide bombings and militant attacks in parts of Pakistan, including Islamabad, Bajaur and Bannu.
However, the Afghan side has offered a sharply different account. Afghan officials, including spokespersons for the interim Kabul administration, said that the strikes hit civilian areas, including homes and a religious school, causing both deaths and injuries among non-combatants. They rejected Pakistan’s figures and described the operations as a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.
The cross-border strikes mark a further escalation in tensions along the long and often volatile border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where militant activity and periodic clashes have strained relations. Pakistan has repeatedly accused militant groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and affiliates of using Afghan territory as safe havens, allegations Kabul denies.