Afghanistan Vows to Retaliate After Pakistani Strikes

(MENAFN) Afghanistan has pledged to strike back against Pakistan following overnight airstrikes that Kabul says killed at least 18 civilians, including women and children, and wounded several more across two eastern provinces.

Pakistan's military carried out the attacks Saturday in Nangarhar and Paktika, with Afghanistan's Defense Ministry confirming that residential homes and a religious school were among the sites struck. Kabul swiftly condemned the operation, declaring it "a breach of international law and the principles of good neighborliness."

"We hold the Pakistani military responsible for targeting civilians and religious sites," the ministry said in a formal statement. "We will respond to these attacks in due course with a measured and appropriate response."

Islamabad defended the operation as justified, calling it a "retributive response" to a string of deadly militant attacks on Pakistani soil — among them a bombing at a Shiite mosque earlier this month that left at least 31 dead and nearly 170 wounded. Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed responsibility for that assault.

Pakistan's Information Ministry said via X that its forces "carried out intelligence-based, selective targeting of seven terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to the Pakistani Taliban of FAK and its affiliates and ISKP at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with precision and accuracy," accusing Kabul's Taliban administration of failing to "undertake any substantive action" against armed groups operating on its soil. Authorities claimed at least 70 militants were neutralized — a figure the Taliban flatly rejected as false.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari defended the campaign, saying it was "rooted in Pakistan's inherent right to defend its people against terrorism," and asserting that repeated warnings issued to Kabul had been ignored. He cautioned that perpetrators of attacks on Pakistani soil "will not remain beyond reach," and emphasized that civilian protection is "paramount and non-negotiable."

The strikes mark a sharp deterioration in an already fragile bilateral relationship. Tensions flared dramatically last October when both nations accused each other of aggression along their shared border, triggering days of deadly clashes that killed scores of soldiers and civilians. A Qatari-brokered ceasefire eventually halted the fighting, but follow-up diplomacy in Istanbul in November failed to yield a binding agreement, leaving the relationship deeply unsettled.

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