Afghan officials said Pakistani ground operations and strikes overnight into June 29 killed at least 36 civilians and wounded more than 160 in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces. Pakistan said the action targeted militant positions following attacks inside Pakistan, presenting a sharply different account of those hit.
Hamdullah Fitrat, who speaks for the Taliban administration as a deputy, said a home in Chamkani district, Paktia, was struck, killing an older man and a child. He said another strike hit people who gathered to help, leaving 28 villagers dead and 158 wounded. In Paktika’s Giyan district, six people, mainly women and children, were reported killed when a house was hit. A Kunar home was damaged without human casualties, while about 30 animals died.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan independently confirmed at least 28 civilian deaths and 49 injuries, including women and children. It called those figures preliminary. The UN count was lower than the total reported by Afghan officials but independently supported substantial civilian harm.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said security forces began a border ground operation late Sunday and then attacked hideouts and safe havens. He reported 29 fighters killed and said weapons stores were destroyed. Tarar circulated videos that he said showed strikes on sites associated with Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and other militants, but the supplied report did not include independent verification of those target claims.
Afghanistan denounced the action as aggression and said it would respond later. Pakistan said it was reacting to a series of militant attacks, including an assault on the Rangers’ regional headquarters in Karachi. Three soldiers died there. Pakistani forces also killed three assailants and detained a wounded Afghan whom the military linked to the operation. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed the Karachi attack.
The two governments summoned one another’s senior diplomats on June 29. Afghanistan accused Islamabad of blaming it without credible proof, while Pakistan protested what it described as Afghan involvement in violence on Pakistani soil. India rejected Pakistan’s separate allegation that militants received Indian backing.
The dispute sits within a broader deterioration along the border. The Pakistani Taliban, also called the TTP, is distinct from Afghanistan’s Taliban government but allied with it. Militant attacks on Pakistani police and security forces have increased, and Pakistani authorities have repeatedly said Afghan territory is being used to organize them. Kabul disputes Pakistan’s framing.
The episode followed Pakistani strikes less than three weeks earlier and months of cross-border violence. At the historical reporting point, civilian casualty figures differed by source, Pakistan maintained that it hit militants, and Afghanistan promised retaliation. Those competing claims remained unresolved, while the UN’s preliminary findings established a minimum independently confirmed civilian toll.
