By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday dismissed as “baseless” and “preposterous” an Indian government statement condemning its recent air strikes against militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, strikes that killed at least 29 militants and that have plunged relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul to a new low.
The exchange marked the latest escalation in a dispute that began late on June 27, when militants detonated a vehicle bomb at the gate of a Pakistan Rangers paramilitary camp in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar neighbourhood and stormed the compound. Three Rangers personnel were killed and four wounded before troops repelled the assault, killing three attackers and capturing a fourth, who was an Afghan national.
Authorities blamed the attack on Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban that Islamabad describes as an Indian proxy, an allegation India has not directly addressed.
Two nights later, Pakistani forces struck militant camps and safe havens in the eastern Afghan provinces of Paktia, Paktika and Kunar, part of a continuing Operation Ghazab lil-Haq. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the strikes destroyed three targets and killed 25 militants belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the group Pakistan calls Fitna al-Khawarij, its designation for the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He said a separate ground operation in Bajaur district that weekend killed additional militants, and put the combined toll at 29.
India’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes on Monday, calling them a “blatant act of aggression” that amounted to an assault on Afghan sovereignty and a direct threat to regional peace and stability. Pakistan’s Foreign Office rejected that criticism outright. “Pakistan rejects the baseless statement on its legitimate, targeted and proportionate actions against terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan,” spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said in a statement posted on X on Wednesday.
“This preposterous statement has been made by a country that has historically interfered in and undermined the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbouring countries, in contravention of the UN Charter, and continues to suppress the right to self-determination of the Kashmiris in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, in violation of the relevant UN resolutions,” Andrabi said.
He accused India of actively aiding and sponsoring terrorist groups operating from Afghan soil against Pakistan, in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions, and said New Delhi continued to play the role of a regional spoiler whose “baseless accusations and inflammatory statements against Pakistan must not be entertained.”
“Pakistan has been and will continue to take all appropriate measures to uphold the safety and security of its citizens in accordance with international law,” he said.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry rejected Pakistan’s allegations linking Afghan territory to the Karachi attack, accusing Islamabad of trying to shift blame for domestic security failures onto its neighbour. Both governments summoned each other’s senior diplomats over the weekend to lodge formal protests, Pakistan over the Karachi bombing and Afghanistan over what it called the bombing of civilian homes and violation of its airspace. The dispute is the second such cross-border escalation this month. Pakistan struck militants targets in Khost, Kunar and Paktika on June 11.
Pakistan has for years pressed the Taliban administration, which took power in Kabul in 2021, to shut down sanctuaries it says are used by the TTP and allied groups to plan and launch attacks inside Pakistan. Islamabad says those appeals have gone largely unanswered.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces since the Taliban returned to power, and repeated rounds of talks between Islamabad and Kabul have failed to produce a lasting agreement, hampered chiefly by the Taliban’s reluctance to move against groups based on its soil, according to Pakistani officials.
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