KABUL, March 19, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Eight civilians were killed Monday in
"reckless" air strikes by Pakistan's military in the border regions of
Afghanistan, prompting Afghan forces to retaliate against Pakistani military
outposts, Taliban officials said.

Border tensions between the two countries have steadily escalated since the
Taliban government seized power in 2021, with Islamabad claiming militant
groups are carrying out regular attacks from Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft "bombed civilian
homes" in Khost and Paktika provinces near the border with Pakistan at around
3:00 am (2230 GMT Sunday), adding that all of the dead were women and
children.

Afghanistan's defence ministry said its border forces retaliated by targeting
Pakistan's military posts along the border with "heavy weapons".

Cross-border skirmishes in the region were reported by both sides on Monday,
the latest in a string of incidents on the disputed frontier.

The Taliban government "strongly condemns these attacks and calls this
reckless action a violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty", Mujahid said in
his statement.

"Such incidents can have very bad consequences which will be out (of)
Pakistan's control."

Pakistan's foreign ministry confirmed on Monday it had carried out "anti-
terrorist operations in the border regions inside Afghanistan".

It said in a statement it was targeting the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, one of
several factions of the homegrown Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP), that are responsible for a surge in border violence against
police and security officials.

The strikes prompted a call from the United States for Pakistan, once a key
ally in its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, to "exercise restraint".

"We urge the Taliban to ensure that terrorist attacks are not launched from
Afghan soil and we urge Pakistan to exercise restraint and ensure civilians
are not harmed in their counterterrorism efforts," State Department spokesman
Vedant Patel told reporters.

- Drones and jets -

Malak Noor Khan, a tribal elder in the Sperah district of Khost, said he saw
at least four explosives dropped from drones and jets and that multiple homes
were destroyed, one with a woman and her children inside.

"When the drone came first, we all, including women and children, left our
homes and went into the trees on the mountainside, it was very cold as there
was snow on the ground," he told AFP.

A local government official in Pakistan's border regions, who asked not to be
identified, told AFP residents had been instructed to evacuate the area
during the skirmishes.

Islamabad has accused Kabul's Taliban government of harbouring militant
fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity.

Kabul has denied the allegations.

In the first half of 2023, attacks rose by 80 percent, with 112 people killed
in August, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security
Studies.

A senior government official based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who asked not to be
identified, told AFP that, despite repeated complaints, "Afghanistan does not
seem to be taking the matter seriously".

Regional analyst Saira Aqil said that, while increased attacks in Pakistan
are "prompting inevitable retaliation", the country "cannot afford to lose
Afghanistan as an ally".

- 'We will respond' -

The Afghan foreign ministry said in a statement posted on X it had summoned
the head of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul to protest against Monday's
strikes.

It called on Pakistan's new government to "not allow some circles to
complicate the relationship between two neighbouring Muslim countries" -- an
apparent reference to certain Pakistani military leaders.

The Pakistan foreign ministry in turn said that "certain elements among those
in power in Afghanistan are actively patronising TTP and using them as a
proxy against Pakistan", urging them "to make a clear choice to stand with
the people of Pakistan".

Monday's strikes came after seven Pakistani troops were killed in an attack
by an armed group inside Pakistan's territory on Saturday, for which
President Asif Ali Zardari vowed retaliation.

"Pakistan has decided that whoever will enter our borders, homes or country
and commit terror, we will respond to them strongly, regardless of who it is
or from which country," he said while attending the funeral prayers of the
soldiers.

A Pakistani military statement said security forces also carried out an
operation overnight Sunday in North Waziristan district, which borders Khost
and Paktika, killing eight militants accused of being involved in Saturday's
attack.