Pakistan's military air raids over Afghanistan, which targeted the eastern provinces of Khost and Kunar on Saturday, have caused several casualties, which have risen to at least 47, officials said.
The director of information and culture in Khost, Shabir Ahmad Osmani, said that the dead victims included 41 civilians who were mainly women and children. The official added that 22 other people were wounded by the airstrikes near the Durand Line in his province.
Pakistan Air Raids
Two other Afghan officials confirmed the increased death toll in Khost while a third one said on Saturday that six other people were killed in Kunar province. The largest news channel in the region showed images of children's bodies who were reportedly killed during the airstrikes.
Furthermore, the media outlet showed protests involving hundreds of residents in Khost that were condemning Pakistan and shouting anti-Pakistan slogans. On the other hand, the Pakistani military has not made any comments regarding the attacks. But on Sunday, Islamabad's foreign ministry urged the Taliban authorities in Kabul to take "stern actions" against armed fighters attacking Pakistan from Afghan soil, as per Aljazeera.
Since the Taliban insurrection group took control of Afghanistan last year, border tensions between the country and Pakistan have risen. Islamabad officials claimed that militant groups have been carrying out frequent attacks from Afghan territory.
On the other hand, the Taliban group has denied that they were harboring Pakistani militants, saying they were also frustrated by a fence that Islamabad erected along their 2,700-kilometer border. Before the airstrikes, there were reports that Pakistan's military forces fired rockets into Afghan territories.
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According to France24, an official with the Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Khost, Mohammad Najibullah, was the one who revealed the increased death toll in the province. He also noted that 24 of the victims who were killed were all part of one family.
A spokesman for the Taliban government released a statement on Twitter that said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan "strongly condemns Pakistan's attacks on refugees in Khost and Kunar." The official, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that the IEA calls on the Pakistani side not to test the patience of Afghans on such issues to avoid the same mistake.
Afghanistan's Response
Mujahid added that problems between the two regions should be resolved through political means and not military aggression. Taliban authorities summoned Pakistan's ambassador on Saturday to go to Kabul in order to express their disapproval of the attacks and give him a diplomatic demarche to deliver to Islamabad.
In a Sunday statement, Pakistan's foreign office said that the country had repeatedly requested the newly-formed Afghan government in the last few months to secure the Pak-Afghan border region. They argued that terrorists were using Afghan soil with impunity to carry out activities inside Pakistan.
Pakistani Taliban, otherwise known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, have made a stronghold in the area between the two countries for decades. The group, which is a banned militant group in Pakistan, drew its strength from some of the same ideological and religious moorings as the Afghan Taliban, the New York Times reported.
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