Four civilians killed in Pakistani strikes in Afghanistan, Taliban says
Pakistan says it struck 10 targets, adding the strikes were "strictly limited to identified military objectives".
Four civilians killed in Pakistani strikes in Afghanistan, Taliban says
Afghanistan’s Taliban government said four civilians were killed in a series of Pakistani air strikes in the latest escalation between the two sides.
Sources told the BBC that the strikes hit provinces including Kandahar, the Taliban’s centre of power. A resident told AFP news agency that they heard a jet, then a large explosion, followed by a fire in the city.
Pakistan said its forces had hit 10 targets in Afghanistan, without saying where they were, and said the strikes were "strictly limited to identified military objectives".
It is the second round of Pakistani air strikes on Afghan territory in the past week, following a deadly attack on a police facility in Pakistan on 18 September.
In a statement, the Taliban said there would be an "appropriate response" after the attack, while Pakistan said any further "provocative act" would be met with a response.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attacks took place in Afghanistan’s Kandahar, Paktia and Khost provinces.
In Paktia, an official said jets bombed the Afghan Armed Forces’ 203 Mansouri Corps, which is under Taliban control, but gave no details on casualties.
In Khost, a spokesman said houses were damaged in the strikes, with no casualties reported. Abdullah, a local eyewitness, told Reuters news agency the strikes happened around midnight.
"People were shouting, and there was panic all around," he said. "Afterwards, the village elder arrived and called out to the houses, asking if anyone was killed. Thankfully, no one was killed."
Another local, Salamat Khan, told Reuters that "there is no military base here, nor are there any military personnel", adding "there are only the homes of ordinary civilians".
Zabihullah Mujahid described the attack as "reckless, careless, and hostile", and said it "will have adverse consequences for the Pakistani military".
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the strikes were "deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate, and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan".
The Taliban and Pakistan had experienced three months of relative calm until fighting resumed after an attack on a mosque at a police compound in north-western Pakistan last week, which killed at least 31 people, according to AFP.
Islamabad has accused Kabul of sheltering the TTP. Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies this, saying militancy is Pakistan’s internal problem.
After the attack on the police facility, Pakistan said earlier this week that it carried out air strikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, killing 28 militants.
Farid Dehqan, a spokesman for the Taliban government in Kunar province, told the BBC that three people were killed and four others were injured in the strike. The UN mission Unama also confirmed that at least three civilians were killed.
Then on Wednesday, Pakistan said it detected drones launched from Afghanistan into its territory and that all of them were "neutralised". Taliban officials denied that their government had launched drones against Pakistan that day.
Unama said in July that cross-border armed violence between Taliban government forces and Pakistani security forces killed at least 499 civilians and wounded 1,216 others between October 2025 and June 2026.
The worst single incident happened in March, when more than 269 people were killed, external, in a Pakistani air strike on Kabul, which the Afghan Taliban said hit a drug rehabilitation centre. Islamabad denied the accusation, saying it "precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure".
The neighbouring countries agreed to a ceasefire in March, but international mediation has not produced a lasting settlement.
At a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly earlier this week, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar called for "concrete and verifiable" measures to ensure that Afghan territory is not used for "terrorism".