BY Staff Reporter
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan’s military said Friday that it had killed at least 274 personnel of the Afghan Taliban regime and affiliated terrorists in a sweeping retaliatory operation that followed an unprovoked cross-border firing from Afghanistan the previous night.
In a lengthy briefing at military headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, said the action destroyed more than 73 Taliban posts along the frontier, captured 18 checkposts and knocked out 115 tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces. Pakistani air and ground strikes also hit 22 terrorist hideouts used by groups including Fitna al-Hindustan and Fitna al-Khawarij.
The clashes began Thursday night when Afghan Taliban fighters opened fire in 15 sectors across 53 locations along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The attacks targeted multiple districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, including Chitral, Khyber, Mohmand, Kurram and Bajaur. Pakistani forces repulsed every assault before launching their own calibrated response, Chaudhry said.
Pakistan struck back with operation Ghazab lil-Haq along the border and Pakistani Air Force attacks inside Afghanistan on the nights of Feb. 26 and 27, targeting what the military described as core headquarters of Taliban forces, brigade and battalion commands, sector headquarters, ammunition depots, logistics bases and shelters used by militants. The locations spanned Afghan provinces including Kabul, Kandahar, Paktia, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika. “All these targets were very carefully selected based on intelligence,” Chaudhry said. “Great care was exercised so that there is no civilian collateral damage. At no place was any civilian infrastructure targeted.”
The operation is continuing under directives from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and will go on “until its objectives are achieved,” the spokesperson said. “Our operation last night was for the defence of our country and the protection of our people,” Chaudhry told reporters. “The forces acted in a professional manner and targeted only military objectives.”
Chaudhry said Pakistani forces also intercepted and destroyed rudimentary drones launched from the Afghan side toward targets in Abbottabad, Nowshera and Sibi. Videos of the strikes on alleged terrorist positions were shown during the briefing. On the Pakistani side, 12 soldiers were killed, 27 were wounded and one remains missing in action, according to the military. More than 400 Taliban regime personnel and fighters from affiliate groups were reported injured in addition to those killed.
Chaudhry described the Afghan Taliban regime as “the master proxy of terrorist proxies operating out of Afghanistan” and accused it of patronising groups responsible for attacks inside Pakistan, including the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. “The oppressive Afghan Taliban regime has to make a clear choice — choose between TTP, BLA, Daesh, Al-Qaeda — these terrorist organisations — and Pakistan,” he said. “This is not something new I am saying. The Pakistani government has conveyed this position many times before. Our choice is clear, and we will never hesitate to make a sacrifice for it. Pakistan will always come above everything else.”
He warned that any future terrorist incident in Pakistan would draw a response aimed at those providing sanctuary in Afghanistan. “If there is any attack inside Pakistan, we will go after the Afghan Taliban,” he said. “If there is terrorism in any place, any city in Pakistan, any suicide bombing … then, wherever there are not just terrorists but their guardians and those who protect them, none of their places will be safe either. Then we also have the equal rights.”
Chaudhry said the line between the Afghan Taliban regime and terrorism had become “blurred.” He rejected what he called lies spread by Afghan media, social media and “Indian proxies” claiming Pakistani forces had struck civilian sites. “You have been hearing this lie since last night,” he said.
The military spokesperson also noted broad political support inside Pakistan for the operation. All parties and leaderships are “absolutely clear that there is no space for terrorism or its facilitation in Pakistan,” he said, adding that the National Action Plan was agreed upon by consensus across the political spectrum. He praised police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa “who are at the forefront of this battle” and said the armed forces draw strength from the Pakistani people, who “stand in front, behind, and on both sides of this army.”
Chaudhry said Pakistan’s forces remain fully prepared on both the eastern and western borders. “We are the bulwark standing against the threat of terrorism,” he said. “This threat is not limited to Pakistan alone, but extends to the entire region.”
The latest fighting marks a sharp rise in tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban-led regime in Kabul, already strained by repeated accusations that Afghanistan harbors militants launching attacks into Pakistan. Chaudhry described the initial Afghan firing as a “deliberate escalation” and said Pakistan would continue to respond with full force to defend its sovereignty. The operation, he said, delivered “an effective, immediate, and brutal response” to the aggression. “A well-deserved response to terrorists, their facilitators — the master proxy of terrorism in the region.”
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