Pakistan’s military early on Sunday carried out air strikes in Afghanistan, targeting what it called “camps and hideouts” belonging to armed groups behind a spate of recent attacks, including a deadly suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad.
The Afghan Ministry of Defence condemned the attacks, 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 told Al Jazeera that at least 17 people were killed in Nangarhar.
The attacks threaten a fragile ceasefire between the South Asian neighbours, negotiated following deadly border clashes that killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected fighters in October last year.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement on X that the country’s military conducted “intelligence-based, selective operations” against seven camps and hideouts belonging to the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its affiliates.
An affiliate of the Islamic State group was also targeted in the border region, it said.
The ministry said it had “conclusive evidence” that recent attacks in Islamabad, as well as in the northwestern Bajaur and Bannu districts, were perpetrated by fighters “on behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers”.
It said Pakistan has repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s Taliban government to take action to prevent armed groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks, but that Kabul has failed to “undertake any substantive action”.
Pakistan “has always strived to maintain peace and stability in the region”, it added, but said the safety and security of Pakistani citizens remained its top priority.
The Pakistani air strikes on Afghanistan came hours after a suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in the Bannu district of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel.
On Monday, a suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a security post in the nearby Bajaur, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national.
On February 6, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives during noon prayers at the Khadija Tul Kubra mosque in Islamabad’s Tarlai Kalan area, killing at least 31 worshippers and wounding 170 others.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Islamabad attack.
While bombings are rare in the heavily guarded capital, the attack on Khadija Tul Kubra was the second such attack in three months, raising fears of a return to violence in Pakistan’s major urban centres.
At the time, the Pakistani military said the “planning, training, and indoctrination for the attack took place in Afghanistan”.
In its statement on Sunday, the Pakistani Information Ministry reiterated its call for the international community to press the Taliban to uphold its commitments under the agreement it signed with the United States, in the Qatari capital, Doha, in 2020, to prevent the use of Afghan territory for attacks against other countries.
The ministry said the move was “vital for regional and global peace and security”.
For its part, the Afghan Ministry of Defence condemned the Pakistani attacks as “a breach of international law and the principles of good neighbourliness”.
It promised to respond.
“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 said.
Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP and outlawed Baloch separatist groups. Islamabad accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge the group denies.
The Taliban government has also consistently denied sheltering anti-Pakistan armed groups.
Relations between the neighbouring countries have remained tense following the deadly clashes in October. The fighting followed explosions in Kabul, which Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan.
A ceasefire mediated by Qatar on October 19 has largely held, but subsequent talks in Turkiye’s Istanbul failed to produce a formal agreement.