Pakistani army fire in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday killed at least 50 people, Afghan officials said Sunday, while Islamabad had demanded that Kabul take “very strict measures” to crack down on violence. extremists attacking Afghan territory.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan last August, tensions on the two countries’ borders have escalated. Pakistan says armed groups, most notably the Pakistan Taliban Movement (TTP), have launched airstrikes across Afghanistan, crossing porous borders.
“Forty-one civilians, mostly women and children, were killed and 22 others wounded in Pakistani airstrikes near the Durand Line in the province of Khost,” Ahmad Osmani, a Khost official, told AFP.
Two other officials confirmed the report. A fourth Afghan official spoke on Saturday about six other dead in Kunar province.
“Pakistani helicopters have hit four villages near the Durand Line in Khost province. Only civilian homes have been hit and there have been casualties,” an Afghan official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Footage of houses destroyed in the raids was broadcast by TOLO News, Afghanistan’s main private television network.
“All the people targeted were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or the government,” said Rasul Jan, a Khost resident.
“We do not know who the enemy is, nor why we entered the crosshairs,” he added.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Khost on Saturday, chanting anti-Pakistan slogans, according to photographs obtained by AFP.
According to Najibullah, an official of the Afghan Ministry of Virtue Promotion and Prevention of the Emancipation of the Taliban government, the number of Pakistani attacks in the province of Khost is 48 dead.
Twenty-four victims were “members of the same family,” he said.
Jamshid, a bodyguard in Khost, estimated that the Pakistani strike had killed more than 50 people.
“Yesterday I went on the spot, accompanied by others, to donate blood for the injured,” he added.
The Pakistani military has not confirmed that it has carried out raids so far.
Islamabad limited itself to calling on the Taliban government in Kabul on Sunday to take “very strict action” against extremists launching attacks on Pakistan from Afghan territory.
“Pakistan, once again, strongly condemns terrorists who operate with complete impunity from Afghan territory,” the foreign ministry said in a press release issued yesterday.
Pakistani diplomacy has demanded that the Afghan government guarantee security “in the border area” and “take very strict measures against those involved in terrorist activities in Pakistan”.
Last Thursday, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in the province of North Waziristan in an attack by “terrorists operating in Afghanistan,” the foreign ministry said.
“Hostility”
The Afghan Taliban deny hosting Pakistani extremists and denounce the 2,000-kilometer-long Islamabad border wall known as the Durad Line, a colonial-era legacy.
Kabul warned Islamabad yesterday: “We will take all necessary measures to prevent a recurrence (of such attacks) and demand that our national integrity be respected. The Pakistani side must know that if war breaks out, it will not be in anyone’s interest. “Taliban government spokesman Zambiola Mujahid said.
“This is inhumanity that leads to hostility between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he added.
The Afghan Taliban and the TTP are separate organizations in the two countries. Although they share a similar ideology, and are based on people living on both sides of the border, their relationship is characterized as bad.
Thousands of people cross the border every day, mostly traders, people who go to Pakistan to see doctors and people who visit relatives.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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