The attack came days after the Taliban vowed to retaliate for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense has announced that Afghan Taliban forces are targeting “several locations” in neighboring Pakistan, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out airstrikes in the country.
A Defense Ministry statement on Saturday did not directly specify that Pakistan had been attacked, but said the attack took place “beyond the ‘imaginary line’.” The expression is used to refer to the country’s border with Pakistan, which Afghan authorities have long disputed. .
“Several hypothetical locations serving as strongholds and hideouts for malign elements and their supporters who organized and coordinated attacks in Afghanistan have been targeted for retaliation from the country’s southeast direction,” the ministry said. It became,” he said.
Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, a ministry spokesperson said: “We cannot confirm the territory because we do not consider it to be Pakistani territory, but it was on the other side of the line of assumption.” ” he said.
For decades, Afghanistan 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 present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’ve done it.
Details of casualties and specific areas targeted were not disclosed. Pakistan’s military public relations department and foreign ministry spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Al Jazeera reporter Abid Hussain, reporting from Islamabad on Saturday afternoon, said there had been no official response from Pakistani authorities regarding the attack.
At least one Pakistani militia soldier was killed and seven others injured in a cross-border firefight with Afghan forces, security sources told AFP news agency.
Sporadic clashes involving heavy weapons broke out overnight between border forces in the border area between Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Afghanistan’s Khost province, officials from both countries said.
The incident comes after Afghan Taliban officials accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mostly women and children, in airstrikes near the border this week.
Islamabad said it had targeted militant hideouts along the border, but Afghan authorities warned on Wednesday that they would retaliate.
The neighbors have tense relations, and Pakistan has said several attacks on its territory have been launched from Afghan territory, a charge the Afghan Taliban denies.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), which shares a common ideology with Afghanistan, attacked a military outpost near the Afghan border last week, killing 16 soldiers, Pakistan said.
“We want good relations with them (Afghanistan), but the killing of innocent people by the TTP must stop,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet address on Friday.
“This is our red line.”
Al Jazeera’s Hussain explained that Pakistan was hoping for good relations with the Taliban after their occupation of Afghanistan in 2021, and that TTP attacks in Pakistan would be curtailed.
However, relations deteriorated due to escalating violence.
Hussain said more than 950 Pakistanis, including security personnel and civilians, were killed in 2024 alone.
