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Pakistan carried out overnight air and drone strikes at 10 locations in Afghanistan, including targets in the eastern provinces of Paktia and Khost, while an airstrike also hit Kandahar, home to the Taliban government's supreme leader.
Pakistan's Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar confirmed the strikes several hours later, describing them as attacks on military objectives linked to attempted attacks against Pakistan.
"The strikes were deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate, and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan," he wrote on X.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban government of allowing militant groups, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory. Tarar renewed that accusation Thursday.
"For years, Pakistan has repeatedly conveyed its grave concerns to the Afghan Taliban regime and its interlocutors regarding the continued presence of terrorist sanctuaries and their support networks on Afghan soil," Tarar added in the same post.
"Instead of dismantling these networks and taking credible and verifiable action against those using Afghan territory to perpetrate terrorism against Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban regime has chosen to escalate the situation through hostile drone operations against Pakistan."
Afghan officials repeatedly rejected Pakistan's accusations and instead accused Islamabad of harboring hostile groups and violating Afghanistan's sovereignty.
Local Afghan officials confirmed overnight strikes in two eastern provinces. In Paktia, jets bombed the Afghan army's 203rd Mansouri Corps, according to provincial governor spokesman Mohammad Rasool Ahmadi, who provided no information on casualties.
The latest attacks follow deadly violence earlier this week in eastern Afghanistan, where the United Nations reported at least three civilian deaths. Pakistan, however, claimed its strikes killed 28 militants.
The escalation comes nearly a week after a militant attack on a police headquarters in northern Pakistan killed at least 31 people. A group linked to the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kandahar and Kabul were also hit when Afghanistan and Pakistan went to war in late February. Weeks of fighting killed hundreds of Afghan civilians, according to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.
Although the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in March, mediation efforts involving several countries, including Türkiye, have failed to produce a lasting settlement.
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