Pakistani envoy summoned over strikes in Paktika province, says Afghan foreign ministry
Afghanistan’s foreign office on Wednesday said it summoned Pakistan’s head of mission in Kabul to deliver a formal protest over strikes carried out by Pakistani forces a day earlier.
Pakistan’s security officials late Tuesday night had said that fighter jets bombed four locations, said to be camps of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, targeting and neutralising several suspected terrorists. The government has yet to issue an official statement on the strikes. Dawn.com has reached out to the foreign office for a comment.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been strained due to frequent border skirmishes and Islamabad repeatedly demanding Kabul to take action against TTP for using Afghan soil to launch attacks in Pakistan. Kabul denies the allegations.
Sources said that TTP camps in the Murgha and Laman areas of Bernal district were targeted, including one that was used by Sher Zaman alias Mukhlis Yar, Commander Abu Hamza, Commander Akhtar Muhammad and the head of TTP’s media arm, Umar Media.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, while talking to Dawn.com on Wednesday, claimed that 46 people were killed in the strikes, including “locals and some Pakistani displaced persons from Waziristan tribal regions, who had been living in Afghanistan’s border areas in camps”. He said the Shin Stargi Adda, Sorzaghmi, Almasti and Marghai areas in the Paktika province were bombed.
The strikes came the same day that a Pakistani delegation, led by Special Representative Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq, met interim Interior Minister Sirajudddin Haqqani and Foreign Minister Amir Muttaqi in Kabul to resume diplomatic dialogue after a year-long hiatus.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s foreign ministry said it summoned the Charge d’Affaires of the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul on Wednesday afternoon and handed over a formal protest note regarding the bombing “near the Durand Line in the Bermal district of Paktika province”.
The ministry, in its statement, said the “violation” was condemned and alleged that the move was “an attempt by certain Pakistani factions to create distrust between the two countries” as the two sides engaged in talks.
Reuters quoted a senior Pakistan security official as saying that the strikes were on “terrorist hideouts” using jets and drones and that they killed at least 20 TTP terrorists.
“Arguments from Afghan officials claiming civilians are being harmed are baseless and misleading,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In a post on X by the Afghan defence ministry on Tuesday night, the Afghan Taliban regime had confirmed reports of the strike carried out by Pakistani forces but claimed that the dead and injured included several children and other civilians.
Earlier this month, Pakistan decided to reappoint Ambassador Sadiq as its special representative to Afghanistan. Though no official announcement was made in this regard, the appointment was confirmed by a source privy to the development, according to Dawn.
The appointment came amid reports that the Afghan Taliban had begun relocating members of the TTP and their families away from the border in Ghazni, their new abode to ease tensions with Pakistan.
Days later on December 10, Afghan chargé d’affaires Sardar Ahmad Shakeeb and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also met in Islamabad, where the two discussed the “deep-rooted ties” between their nations.
The Foreign Office said on Dec 13 that recent engagements with Afghanistan underscored Pakistan’s desire for resolution of outstanding issues through dialogue.
Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had said, at a weekly media briefing, that recent meetings were “an expression of Pakistan’s interest in dialogue to resolve any issues that arise from time to time and to find constructive approach and solutions to issues, including issues that are of serious concern to Pakistan”.
The back-to-back meetings had given the impression that the two sides were preparing for renewal of engagement after a period of tension caused by Pakistani allegations of the TTP being allowed sanctuaries on Afghan soil.
Baloch had said earlier in the month that counterterrorism was on top of the bilateral agenda.
Past escalations
Back in March, the FO confirmed Pakistan had carried out “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations” inside the border regions of Afghanistan, hours after Kabul said airstrikes conducted on its soil had killed eight people.
FO said the prime targets of the operation conducted in the morning earlier today were terrorists belonging to the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group, adding that the outfit, along with the TTP, was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, resulting in “deaths of hundreds of civilians and law enforcement officials”.
It said that the latest attack of such an instance took place on March 17 at a security post in Mir Ali in North Waziristan which claimed the lives of seven Pakistani soldiers.
In July, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told BBC in an interview that Pakistan will “continue to launch attacks against Afghanistan as part of a new military operation aimed at countering terrorism”.
“It’s correct that we have been carrying out operations in Afghanistan, and we will continue to do so. We won’t serve them with cake and pastries. If attacked, we’ll attack back,” Asif had told the outlet.
Additional input from Reuters