Fighter jets from Pakistan

Several people killed in airstrikes in Afghanistan

An Afghan security officer at the Afghan-Pakistani border

(Bild: AFP)

According to the ruling radical Islamic Taliban, at least eight people were killed in Pakistani air strikes in Afghanistan on Monday night. Pakistani fighter jets attacked civilian homes in the border provinces of Khost and Paktika at around 3 a.m. (Sunday, 11 p.m. CET), a Taliban spokesman said. Three children were among those killed. The Taliban spoke of an "attack on the sovereignty of Afghanistan".

Since the return of the Islamist Taliban to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, tensions with neighboring Pakistan have increased. The government in Islamabad accuses militant groups from Afghanistan of carrying out armed attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistani military post previously attacked
A few days ago, five members of the security forces were killed in a suicide attack on a military post in north-western Pakistan. "The terrorists rammed into the post with a vehicle loaded with explosives," the Pakistani military announced on Saturday. The building had partially collapsed. Several suicide bombers then attacked. Residents of Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told Reuters that an explosion shook doors and shattered windows when the attack began.

Islamists want to overthrow Pakistan's government
Many of the attacks in Pakistan are attributed to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). The government in Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of using the neighboring country as a base for the attacks. The Taliban, who rule Afghanistan, deny this. The TTP are seeking to overthrow the government and want to lead Pakistan according to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. In recent years, the Islamists have killed thousands of soldiers, police officers and civilians in bomb attacks and suicide bombings.