Afghan Taliban hit ‘several points’ in Pakistan in retaliation for attacks

Afghan Taliban forces have targeted “several points” in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense said, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardments inside the country.

The statement from the defence ministry on Saturday did not directly specify that Pakistan was hit, but said the attacks were conducted “beyond the ‘hypothetical line’” – an expression used by Afghan authorities to refer to a border with Pakistan that they have long disputed.

“Several points beyond the hypothetical line, serving as centres and hideouts for malicious elements and their supporters who organised and coordinated attacks in Afghanistan, were targeted in retaliation from the southeastern direction of the country,” the ministry said.

Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi said: “We do not consider it to be the territory of Pakistan, therefore, we cannot confirm the territory, but it was on the other side of the hypothetical line.”

Afghanistan has for decades rejected the border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by British colonial authorities in the 19th century through the mountainous and often lawless tribal belt between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan.

No details of casualties or specific areas targeted were provided. The Pakistani military’s public relations wing and a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a security source told the AFP news agency on Saturday that at least one Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed and seven others wounded in cross-border exchanges of fire with Afghan forces.

Sporadic clashes, including with heavy weaponry, erupted overnight between border forces on the frontier between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and Khost province in Afghanistan, officials from both countries said.

The incidents come after Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mainly women and children, in air strikes near the border this week.

Islamabad said it had targeted hideouts of fighters along the border, while Afghan authorities warned on Wednesday they would retaliate.

The neighbours have a strained relationship, with Pakistan saying that several attacks on its territory have been launched from Afghan soil – a charge the Afghan Taliban denies.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – which shares a common ideology with its Afghan counterparts – last week claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which Pakistan said killed 16 soldiers.

“We desire good ties with them [Afghanistan] but TTP should be stopped from killing our innocent people,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet address on Friday.

“This is our red line.”