Afghanistan and Pakistan exchange cross-border strikes in escalating retaliatory attacks
By Sophia Saifi, Saleem Mehsud, Hira Humayun, CNN
Islamabad (CNN) — Pakistan says its military forces are responding to an attack launched by the Afghan Taliban earlier on Thursday, marking the latest escalation of violence between the neighboring countries.
“Taliban regime forces are being delivered punishment in Chitral, Khyber, Mohmand, Kurram and Bajaur sectors,” Pakistan’s information ministry said, calling an earlier Afghanistan assault “unprovoked.”
“Pakistan will take all necessary measures to ensure its territorial integrity and the safety and security of its citizens,” the Pakistani ministry said.
The two sides reported widely differing casualty figures. Pakistan claimed that its army killed 72 Afghan Taliban fighters, injuring “many” others, and that multiple Afghan military posts and equipment have been destroyed. Afghanistan however, said eight of its soldiers had been killed and 11 injured.
Thirteen Afghan civilians, including women and children, were also injured when Pakistani strikes hit a refugee camp in Nangarhar, Afghanistan’s defense ministry said
Earlier on Thursday evening, Afghanistan’s military launched an offensive against Pakistani positions, calling it a retaliation for Pakistan’s airstrikes on militant camps across the border in Afghanistan over the weekend that left at least 18 people dead.
Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said the retaliatory attacks were occurring along the border in six provinces and that they ended at midnight.
The Afghan forces released video of military vehicles moving at night, and the sound of heavy gunfire.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban government’s deputy spokesman, claimed that Afghan forces had killed 55 Pakistani soldiers, captured some troops alive and taken 19 Pakistani military outposts, adding that Kabul’s troops were deployed along the “Durand Line,” the 1,600-mile disputed border between the two countries. CNN is unable to independently verify the claims.
Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar admitted that Pakistan had suffered casulaties but gave much lower figures than the Afghan claims, saying two Pakistani soldiers had been killed and three were injured.
Without pointing to specific claims by Afghanistan, Tarar accused the government in Kabul of “spreading false and baseless propaganda.”
“After the defeat in the field, the Afghan Taliban regime is resorting to lies and propaganda,” he posted to X.
The strikes inside Afghanistan carried out by Pakistan over the weekend targeted camps belonging to the Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – and its affiliates, as well as a group associated with the Islamic State, which Islamabad blames for a series of attacks in Pakistan, the information ministry said Sunday.
Pakistan has seen weeks of deadly attacks and says it has “conclusive evidence” that they were carried out by militants at the “behest of their Afghanistan based leadership and handlers.”
A fragile ceasefire between the two countries has been in place since October, following the deadliest wave of cross-border violence in years.
In a November interview with CNN, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said his country wanted to “take out” the TTP’s leadership in Afghanistan, stating that it would employ “whatever means are available to us.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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