Pakistan Strikes in Afghanistan Kill 36 Civilians, Islamabad Claims 29 Militants Dead

Pakistani security forces conducted overnight airstrikes and ground operations along the Afghanistan border on June 28-29, 2026, targeting alleged militant hideouts in Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar provinces. The Afghan Taliban's deputy spokesman, Hamdullah Fitrat, said the strikes killed at least 36 civilians and wounded 163 others. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan confirmed Monday that civilians were killed in the strikes, with preliminary figures of at least 28 civilians killed and 49 others injured. Pakistani and Taliban accounts diverged sharply on the nature of those killed. Pakistani officials described the operation as "calibrated strikes" against militant hideouts and safe havens, claiming 29 fighters were eliminated.

Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar publicly framed the operation as a direct response to a recent wave of militant attacks inside Pakistan. Tarar announced on X that security forces struck targets in Paktia, Paktika, and Kunar, claiming 25 fighters were killed in the airstrikes, while a separate ground operation in Bajaur, in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killed several members of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, including a senior commander, and destroyed large quantities of weapons and ammunition. The strikes were conducted under Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, Pakistan's ongoing cross-border military campaign. The strikes came one day after an attack on a Sindh Rangers headquarters in Karachi. Militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the paramilitary Rangers' regional headquarters in Karachi, killing three soldiers; security forces killed three attackers and arrested a fourth, identified as an Afghan national. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility in a statement Saturday night. According to the United Nations Security Council, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is based in Nangarhar province, the same Afghan province from which Pakistani authorities say the arrested attacker came.

The Taliban's Foreign Ministry escalated the diplomatic response in parallel with the military action. Afghanistan's Taliban-run Foreign Affairs Ministry said it had summoned Pakistan's chargé d'affaires in Kabul to present him with a "strong and resolute" protest regarding the bombing and the violation of Afghanistan's airspace. Taliban deputy spokesman Fitrat detailed the human cost in social media posts, describing a pattern consistent with prior Pakistani strike incidents. Fitrat said the deadliest strike occurred in Mandokhail village in Paktia province's Chamkani district, where Pakistani fighter jets bombed a civilian residence, killing one elderly man and one child; when local residents gathered to conduct rescue operations, the area was bombed a second time, resulting in 28 additional deaths and injuries to 158 others. Fitrat added that six additional people, mostly women and children, were killed when a residential house was struck in Walust village of Paktika province's Giyan district. The competing casualty figures could not be independently verified; restricted access to the mountainous border regions has been a persistent constraint on reporting throughout the conflict. [POLITICO]

The June 29 operation sits within an arc of sharply escalating cross-border hostilities that began in October 2025. The first significant confrontation occurred on Oct. 9, 2025, when Pakistan carried out an airstrike in Kabul targeting Noor Wali Mehsud, leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, following a TTP attack on Pakistani soldiers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province; Mehsud survived. The strikes triggered the deadliest clash between the two countries since the Taliban's 2021 takeover; Qatar and Turkey brokered a temporary ceasefire, but Saudi-mediated follow-on talks collapsed by year's end as cross-border violence resumed. Hostilities escalated sharply again in late February 2026. Pakistan's defense minister declared "open war" on its Taliban-run neighbor after Afghan forces launched a cross-border offensive and Pakistan responded with coordinated air and ground strikes. Afghan officials reported on March 16 that Pakistan struck a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, killing more than 400 people and wounding more than 260 others; Pakistani officials claimed they targeted military installations and disputed the casualty figures.

The core legal and diplomatic dispute between Islamabad and Kabul tracks a consistent pattern. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan of providing safe haven to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has carried out attacks aimed at establishing an Islamic emirate inside Pakistan; Taliban authorities have generally denied these allegations. Pakistan calibrates its public framing carefully, designating the TTP as "Fitna al-Khawarij" for domestic legal and political purposes. Fitna al-Khawarij is the state-designated term for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is one of the group's breakaway factions. Islamabad's core demand, that Kabul take "credible and verifiable action" against TTP infrastructure, has not produced agreement. Islamabad has pressed Kabul to take verifiable action against the TTP, a demand that was meant to be addressed through talks mediated by Turkey and Qatar in late 2025, but those negotiations collapsed before any agreement was reached.

Diplomatic mediation efforts remain fragile. Diplomatic efforts, including talks facilitated by China, have so far failed to secure a lasting ceasefire, raising concerns about further escalation along the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border. China is now attempting to organize a second round of meetings between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani officials. The conflict carries compounding regional risk. The year 2025 was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with over 600 police and military personnel killed in TTP attacks, along with a comparable number of civilians. More than 1,034 people were killed and another 1,366 wounded in Pakistan during the broader conflict period; more than 95 percent of attacks were concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the two provinces that share the contested Durand Line border with Afghanistan.