By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Security forces carried out airstrikes on Afghan Taliban military installations in Kabul and Nangarhar provinces on Monday night, destroying technical support infrastructure, ammunition storage facilities and what security sources described as a drone assembly workshop, as Islamabad expanded its cross-border campaign against militants.
The strikes hit six targets in total, the sources said, with two locations in Kabul targeted for technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage. In Nangarhar province, four military installations were struck along with adjacent logistics, ammunition and technical facilities. The operations also destroyed a drone assembly workshop, a headquarters from which drones were reportedly launched, and associated weapon stocks, according to the sources.
Pakistani security sources said the drones were being assembled at those workshops using parts manufactured in India and Israel. They said reports indicated several terrorists were killed in the strikes and that the Pakistan Air Force was continuing operations in both Kabul and Nangarhar late Monday. The actions are part of Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, which Pakistani officials said was launched on the night of Feb. 26 following what they described as unprovoked firing by Afghan Taliban forces across the border.
The operation has since involved artillery exchanges, drone attacks and air strikes along the rugged frontier, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a charge Kabul denies. The latest strikes come amid mutual accusations of civilian targeting that have heightened regional alarm. Pakistani officials said Monday that Afghan Taliban forces deliberately shelled a civilian area in the Salarzai region of Bajaur district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday afternoon, killing four civilians and seriously injuring a 5-year-old child. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed the toll, attributing it to artillery and mortar fire aimed at populated areas.
Afghan authorities countered that four civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling in eastern Afghanistan overnight between Sunday and Monday, according to reports from the international news agency AFP.
Earlier, Pakistani forces conducted overnight strikes Sunday in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, destroying technical support infrastructure, an equipment storage facility and a tunnel used by terrorists, Tarar said. On Monday, the military targeted and destroyed Afghan Taliban and TTP hideouts in the Kurram sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, security sources said. “During these operations, several khawarij were killed while the rest managed to escape,” one source said, using the government’s term for the banned TTP, also known as Fitna al-Khawarij. In the Bajaur sector, forces struck Afghan Taliban posts across the border with guided missiles. Officials vowed that the operation would continue “until all objectives are met.”
Separate militant incidents in BannuThe border clashes have unfolded against a backdrop of persistent militant violence inside Pakistan. In Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least two civilians were abducted and killed in suspected militant-related incidents over the past day, local sources said. In Domel tehsil, armed men seized a well-known local figure, Malik Nabiullah, along with three companions. The others were released, but Nabiullah was taken elsewhere, shot dead and his body recovered later.
Separately, in the Bakakhel area near the Tochi Bridge, unidentified gunmen abducted Shazeb Khan from his village late Sunday; his body was found dumped along the roadside the next day. Investigations into both cases were underway. In another incident in Bannu, police said they thwarted a suspected militant attack on the Fatah Khel police post after detecting suspicious movement on thermal cameras and opening fire, forcing the assailants to flee. “The vigilance and timely response of the personnel prevented a potentially major attack,” police officials said.
Bannu has seen repeated security incidents in recent months. On Friday, one attacker was killed and a police constable injured during an assault on a checkpost guarding an internally displaced persons camp in Bakakhel. Last month, militants raided a mosque and abducted three brothers, two of them police officers, who were later killed. The escalating violence has prompted calls for de-escalation from regional powers, including China, which has urged both Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve tensions through dialogue. Pakistani officials have repeatedly pressed Kabul to crack down on TTP elements they say operate from Afghan soil, while Afghan authorities have condemned Islamabad’s cross-border actions as destabilizing.
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