Violence has waned in Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover, however, several militant groups remain active including the regional chapter of Islamic State.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday afternoon’s attack, which took place in the Qala-e-Bakhtiar area of Kabul’s southern outskirts.

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said “a person wearing explosives on his body detonated,” and one woman was among the fatalities.

“The injured were transferred to hospitals on time and investigations are ongoing,” he posted on social media platform X.

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have declared security their highest priority since surging back to power following the chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces three years ago.

While their sweeping security operations have led to a decline in militants challenging their rule, according to analysts, they also downplay or delay confirmation of attacks.

The last suicide attack in Afghanistan claimed by the regional chapter of Islamic State was in the southern city of Kandahar — the Taliban’s historic stronghold — in March.

Taliban authorities said only three people were killed while a hospital source put the toll far higher at 20.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP last month that Islamic State “existed here before but we suppressed them very hard.”

“No such groups exist here that can pose a threat to anyone,” he said.

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For the next two days, as desperate Afghans and foreign nationals attempted to flee the fallen country, the initial crowd of around 5,000 people overrunning the airport appeared to double every 12 hours.

The Taliban presence south of the airport, combined with their nightly movements throughout Kabul, suggested the possibility of a deliberate, coordinated effort to create a situation where US Marines would inadvertently kill civilians.

If this happened, Taliban fighters would, in theory, gain the favor of the civilians by appearing to “heroically” save Afghans from international forces.

Unpredictable and Messy

Our primary mission was to keep the runway open. We did this while snipers intermittently attacked our checkpoints and panicked civilians threatened to overrun the airport’s perimeter and runway.

When millions of lives are at stake and power is uncertain or nonexistent, the concept of law and order goes out the window. Mildly stated, our job was unpredictable and messy.

I wouldn’t have had a strong stance if you had asked me about non-lethal weapons before August 2021. My primary focus was on live fire and lethal combat relevant to any region where American forces might deploy.

I did not anticipate our combat environment would involve one of the largest air evacuations in world history combined with fixed-site security of what essentially became an island.

I could never have foreseen that we Marines would not be allowed to target our attackers. I damn sure didn’t anticipate that our unit would spend its last two weeks in Afghanistan standing post as partners alongside the same Taliban fighters that had been trying to kill us for over 20 years.

Need for Lethality

In the spring of 2021, our battalion left the United States well-trained before we deployed on a standard six-month rotation as a Marine Expeditionary Unit attached to a US Navy Amphibious Ready Group.

However, our tactics and training — and the equipment we prepared to use in combat — focused mostly on lethal, complex, direct-action missions.

While my Marines and I benefitted from learning how to get on and off a ship to raid an enemy position in a small window of time, we didn’t rely on those skills or the lethal munitions that accompanied them to control chaotic civilian crowds in and around Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA).

We needed more effective non-lethal weapons — which the US Department of Defense now calls intermediate force capabilities — and the training and experience to use them effectively.

Why Intermediate Force?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the US national security policy shift from two decades of combat operations focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency towards the long-term mission of strategic deterrence against peer competitors.

In the South China Sea, US military leaders are preparing to counter an adversary with scalable capabilities ranging from precise lethality to less-than-lethal means.

Since January 2019, Russia has officially been developing weapons that will be mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles and robots and can produce not only kinetic lethal outcomes but also non-lethal acoustic, flashing, and irritating effects.

Intermediate force capabilities refer to a broad array of new and existing operational tools, including non-lethal weapons, that offer scalability between presence and lethality.

From increasing offensive capabilities along the electromagnetic spectrum to establishing a permanent degree of legally permissible actions — that could potentially include deadly force — peer adversaries are preparing for a range of force options.

These types of capabilities can contribute to accomplishing US strategic goals in regions of peer competition by enabling scalable, less-than-lethal tactics in complex situations, such as the one we confronted in Afghanistan.

The Battle of Hamid Karzai International Airport

On August 26, 2021, an Islamic State militant detonated a suicide vest HKIA’s Abbey Gate, killing 13 US service members and dozens of Afghan civilians.

Days later, America’s longest war ended with a massive airlift to evacuate hundreds of thousands of Americans, foreign citizens, and vulnerable Afghans. The US service members successfully conducted the airlift transporting men, women, and children from a hostile environment without using deadly force while keeping a hidden enemy at bay.

Almost two years later, few people appear to understand the amount of combat required to secure and maintain what was Afghanistan’s only functioning international airport for over two weeks.

Taliban units persistently attacked, with assaults halting only the day before US State Department authorities and Taliban representatives brokered a deal.

The resulting agreement mandated that US Marines stand post alongside the same Taliban soldiers who, moments before (and for more than two decades), were our sworn enemies. To say this was an uncomfortable and demoralizing experience would be among the century’s biggest understatements.

When I arrived in Kabul in mid-July 2021 as a special advisor to the commanding general who would be tasked with the evacuation, we were told we would be securing the airport at a time and date to be determined. I began preparing for that operation.

As it turned out, the Taliban offensive across Afghanistan, culminating with the fall of Kabul, decided the evacuation timeline rather than the US or coalition chain of command.

Despite multiple combat deployments, this was my first time carrying a cell phone in combat (we previously had satellite phones). Anytime I had the opportunity, I could call my wife and tell her I was still alive.

And when I called, she would ask me about the latest 30-second videos released on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok that the public assumed to be the most authoritative sources of ground truth.

Video: People run on tarmac of Kabul international airport as a US military aircraft attempts to take off. pic.twitter.com/9qA36HS0WQ

— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 16, 2021

Those viral snapshots from Afghans often portrayed events inaccurately by failing to provide the context of the firefight or airplane arrival right before someone’s smartphone camera started rolling. Misinformation was seemingly as rampant as the hysterical crowd and proliferated with stunning ease.

Like accurate information, non-lethal weapons need to impact an entire crowd to be effective. Although our unit had been through non-lethal weapons training before deployment, by the time we got to HKIA, there was no time left for training.

We could only invent tactics on the ground. Initially, we spent two days and nights fist-fighting the hordes of Afghans to maintain control of the airport. Once that was accomplished, we had to maintain the “grind on the gates” with on-the-spot refresher training on Stinger grenades and improvised weapons of opportunity.

Defending the airport’s runway and main gates, our unit went through our advance team’s supply of Stinger grenades and tear gas canisters in a matter of hours.

In both military and civilian terminals, HKIA was a humanitarian disaster. Living conditions for Afghan civilians and US military forces alike were terrible. Refuse, flu, and COVID-19 were rampant. Afghans fought and assaulted each other for real and imagined evacuation opportunities. Military medical personnel treated everyone they could despite the repellant conditions and performed heroically.

Being in the middle of a national capital that had just fallen, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with that longtime enemy and lacking the permission to defend ourselves confidently compounded the palpable sense of terror and urgency. And yet, we completed the mission.

On multiple occasions, C-17s took off or landed with wings directly over our heads as we were restraining an Afghan crowd five meters — five meters — from the runway. In scenarios like these, intermediate force capabilities such as directed energy weapons would be far more useful than grenades and tear gas.

If US military personnel were trained on these systems and the systems were fielded to infantry battalions or Marine Expeditionary Units, they could have saved both Afghan and American lives.

Logistically speaking, the airlift evacuation from Afghanistan was among the most remarkable humanitarian achievements in history. Much has been written about the strategic failures that allowed the Taliban to take Kabul. Less has been said about the tactical and operational lessons learned from Marines and soldiers who endured the full spectrum of conflict.

For two weeks, the most dangerous place in Kabul changed by the hour. Sometimes it was Abbey Gate, where the suicide bombing happened. Other times it was the airport runway, where 200 US Marines pushed several thousand Afghan civilians beyond the flight line.

Other times again, it was the airport terminal, which sustained intermittent sniper fire. Simultaneously, Taliban units established checkpoints around the airport, including south of the main exit.

As we tried to funnel Afghan civilians who entered the airport perimeter out a gate, they realized they were trapped between Taliban bullets and American fists. Most chose our fists.

Intermediate Force for Future Operations

While the men and women I served with did everything within their ability to prepare for the mission, in hindsight, better tools could have been available that would have helped us accomplish the task.

The need to expand time and space while dealing with evolving threats requires further development and integration of force capabilities beyond lethality.

American battlefield leaders have a strategic, operational, and tactical obligation to provide forces with the ability to determine enemy intent at range, neutralize threats before they become lethal, and disrupt, delay, and impair enemies across all domains.

In situations such as infrastructure defense, intermediate force capabilities can help commanders expand decision time and space in ambiguous situations and help to prevent unnecessary destruction and loss of life.

Examples include acoustic hailers, active denial devices that warn or actively disperse individuals and crowds, and similar systems that could hamper or disable vehicles or vessels.

How would US forces accomplish an air evacuation from Taipei or any vulnerable city in the South China Sea? What technology would Americans use to defend and evacuate one of Vietnam’s small Spratly Island civilian settlements?

Consider the ongoing and ever-present risk of how an enemy can hide within and observe from a civilian population in any operational circumstance, including reconnaissance or counter-recon operations.

Even where force is warranted, experience shows that US military personnel have less of an issue of destroying a target and more challenges in defending against what cannot be identified or engaged.

Non-lethal weapons can reduce the risk of moral injury to the people whom US authorities ask to carry out complex missions.

At HKIA, the skills of chaplains were as crucial as combatants for young men and women to process the human tragedy as they decided who would live or die.

At one checkpoint towards the evacuation’s end, the momentum of the mostly male crowd pushed a young Afghan girl to the ground. As a US Marine reached down to help her, a Taliban soldier pointed his rifle at the infantryman, loudly reminding all parties that men were now forbidden to touch women publicly.

Although leadership diffused the tension and the girl stood up on her own, the incident provides a case study of how intermediate force options can help achieve operational goals.

Non-lethal weapons can mitigate strategic risk by providing warfighters with tools that can seize initiative without armed conflict. They offer options that operate below the level of armed conflict. They also provide options that are linked with lethal force and a means to escalate and de-escalate rather than simply projecting lethality in tense and decisive moments.

From the battalion commander to the lowest private, the men and women I worked with showed courage, bravery, and extreme valor. Knowing that daily they were deciding who lived and died in Afghanistan daily, these young men and women went out and risked their lives to do it because their sense of duty demanded it of them.

Training and equipping American forces with non-lethal weapons will give them every chance of succeeding when this inevitable event happens again.

Intermediate force options are necessary to compete against adversaries and enable American veterans to return from tomorrow’s battlefields, wherever they may be, as physically and psychologically intact as possible.

Bill Callen retired from the Marine Corps as a Marine Gunner after 23 years of service.

Prior to promotion to Gunner, Callen spent his time in the infantry, serving in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Marine Divisions.

In 2021, Gunner Callen was awarded the Gunner Henry Lewis Hulbert Trophy for Outstanding Leadership.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Defense Post.

The Defense Post aims to publish a wide range of high-quality opinion and analysis from a diverse array of people – do you want to send us yours? Click here to submit an op-ed.

The post On the Need for Intermediate Force: Operational Lessons From the Afghanistan Evacuation appeared first on The Defense Post.

The jihadist group said on its Telegram channel late Sunday that “one Shiite was killed in a bombing by Caliphate soldiers in the Afghan capital.”

Kabul police said on Sunday the blast occurred in a western Kabul neighborhood home to many Shiite Muslims, a historically persecuted minority in Afghanistan and a frequent target of the Islamic State group that considers them heretics.

Italian nongovernmental organization Emergency NGO, which operates a hospital in Kabul, said on social media platform X that it had received eight people wounded in the blast, with seven in need of surgery and one “in a serious condition.”

The number of deadly bomb blasts and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has declined markedly since the Taliban ended their insurgency after seizing power in August 2021. However, a number of armed groups, including Islamic State-Khorasan, remain a threat.

Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, is the group’s Afghanistan branch, “Khorasan,” referring to a historical region that included parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The group also claimed an attack targeting tourists in Afghanistan in May that killed six people, including three foreigners.

It has also claimed responsibility for an attack on a Moscow concert hall in March that killed 145 people.

A UN counter-terrorism official warned this month that IS-K poses the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe, having “improved its financial and logistical capabilities in the past six months.”

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the concerns raised were “driven by propaganda” and that the group had been “significantly weakened” in Afghanistan.

“The Islamic Emirate (of Afghanistan) does not allow anyone to use Afghan soil against the security of any other country or to pose threats from Afghanistan,” he wrote on X.

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“ISIL-K has improved its financial and logistical capabilities in the past six months, including by tapping into Afghan and Central Asian diasporas for support,” Vladimir Voronkov, undersecretary-general for counter-terrorism, said.

ISIL-K, or ISIS-K, is an acronym of the jihadist group’s branch in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province.

The group claimed a March attack on a music hall in Moscow, which left 145 people dead.

On Wednesday, Austrian authorities detained Islamic State-linked suspects for allegedly plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, though no link has been reported to the Afghanistan branch.

But the risk of the Afghanistan branch carrying out terrorist attacks abroad has “become manifest,” Voronkov said, noting the group has also intensified its recruitment efforts.

In the latest report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the subject, published last month, it was noted that authorities were on high alert against potential attacks during the Euro football championship and Paris Olympics.

“I call on all member states to unite to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a hotbed of terrorist activities that affect other countries,” Guterres wrote.

Elsewhere, Voronkov warned of a resurgence of Islamic State’s core structure in the Middle East, as well as a deteriorating situation in Africa, where Islamic State West Africa Province and Islamic State’s Sahel branch “have expanded and consolidated their areas of operations.”

“Should these groups extend their influence… a vast territory stretching from Mali to northern Nigeria could fall under their effective control,” he said, while also noting increasing attacks by Islamic State affiliates in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia.

The post UN Warns IS Afghanistan Branch Growing in Strength appeared first on The Defense Post.

Moscow has for years fostered relations with the Taliban, despite being a banned organization in Russia since 2003, and Putin last month called for Moscow to “build up” relations with the Taliban government.

“We must assume that the Taliban control the power in the country. And in this sense the Taliban are, of course, our allies in the fight against terrorism, because any authorities are interested in stability in the state they govern,” Putin said in Astana.

The Taliban have been fighting against jihadist rival Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) in Afghanistan for years.

In March, IS-K fighters killed more than 140 people in an assault on a Moscow concert hall, the deadliest terror attack in Russia for almost two decades.

Since taking over Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have enforced an extreme form of Islamic law that effectively bans women from public life.

Putin said that the Taliban have “taken on some responsibilities” but that there are still “issues that need constant attention inside the country and from the international community.”

“I am sure that the Taliban are interested in everything being stable in Afghanistan,” he added.

Moscow has warmed relations with Afghanistan — with which it has a complicated history after the Soviet invasion in the 1980s — since the US exit from the country.

But it has fallen short of officially recognizing the Taliban government and what it calls the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

The post Putin Says Taliban ‘Our Allies’ in Fighting Terrorism appeared first on The Defense Post.

The six enlisted men and one officer were killed by an “improvised explosive device” in Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said in a statement.

A senior police officer stationed in Lakki Marwat told AFP that “the explosion completely destroyed the vehicle.”

“We have received information that the vehicle came under fire after the blast,” he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has long been a hive of Islamic militant groups including the Pakistani Taliban and the local chapter of the Islamic State group.

“Lakki Marwat is one of the districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa most affected by terrorism,” the senior police officer told AFP.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack.

The Pakistani Taliban — known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — is the most active militant group in the area and regularly targets security forces.

Attacks have spiked in Pakistan since the Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021.

Last year, 29 suicide attacks were registered — the most since 2014 — killing 329 people, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.

Islamabad accuses Kabul’s new rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage attacks on Pakistan.

The Taliban government has repeatedly denied the allegations, and said it will not allow Afghan territory to host foreign militants.

However analysts say the TTP share a common lineage and ideology with the Afghan Taliban.

In January 2023, the TTP was linked to a mosque suicide bombing in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital of Peshawar which killed more than 80 police officers.

In September, Pakistan said four troops were killed during a cross-border raid by “hundreds” of TTP fighters in Chitral, an area popular with domestic tourists.

The post Seven Pakistan Soldiers Killed in Bombing: Army appeared first on The Defense Post.

The jihadist group said in a statement on its Telegram channels that “fighters shot at Christian tourists and their Shiite companions with machine guns” in the mountainous city of Bamiyan on Friday.

The tour group was fired on while shopping in a market in Bamiyan, around 180 kilometers (110 miles) west of the capital Kabul.

The jihadists said they attacked a “bus of tourists who are citizens of coalition countries,” referring to a US-led coalition that has battled IS in the Middle East.

“The attack comes in line with the directives of the leaders of the Islamic State to target nationals of coalition countries wherever they may be,” the statement added.

Taliban officials said on Saturday they had arrested seven suspects in the aftermath of the attack.

Increased Tourism

The number of bombings and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has reduced dramatically since the Taliban authorities took power.

However, a number of armed groups, including IS, remain a threat.

The jihadists have repeatedly targeted the historically persecuted Shiite Hazara community, considering them heretics.

Hazaras make up the majority of the population in Bamiyan province, Afghanistan’s top tourist destination.

The attack is believed to be the first deadly assault on foreign tourists since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 in a country where few nations have a diplomatic presence.

Increasing numbers of visitors have traveled to Afghanistan as security has improved since the Taliban ended their insurgency after ousting the Western-backed government.

The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognized by any foreign government.

It has, however, supported a fledgling tourism sector, with more than 5,000 foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan in 2023, according to official figures.

Western nations advise against all travel to the country, warning of elevated risks of kidnappings and attacks.

The group targeted in Friday’s attack was made up of 13 travelers from various countries, including six Spanish nationals.

Spanish officials said Sunday that all three Spaniards killed in the attack were from Catalonia.

They included a mother and a daughter, and a 63-year-old man who worked as an engineer.

An 82-year-old Spanish retiree was seriously wounded and was evacuated to a Kabul hospital operated by the Italian NGO Emergency, where she and others injured in the attack were stabilized.

“She is progressing favourably from her injuries, but her prognosis is uncertain,” the Spanish foreign ministry said.

Jose Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said Sunday on X that he “strongly condemns” the IS attack and would “work to ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished.”

“The two unharmed Spaniards are now out of Afghanistan. The operation to repatriate the rest of the Spanish victims is still underway,” he added.

Spanish diplomats had traveled to Afghanistan and had been working to repatriate the bodies of the dead and transfer the wounded in coordination with a European Union delegation in Kabul.

The Spanish embassy in Kabul was evacuated in 2021, along with other Western missions, after the Taliban took back control of the Afghan capital.

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The Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-K), a branch of the Islamic State group active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The improvised explosive device (IED) was attached to a motorcycle that targeted a convoy of police vehicles in Faizabad, the capital of mountainous Badakhshan province, around 11 am (0630 GMT).

“The bomb exploded while the convoy of police forces was on its way to destroy poppy cultivation,” Taliban Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani posted on X, formerly Twitter.

IS-K said in the evening it had targeted the Taliban with a “motorcycle bomb.”

The explosion comes days after Taliban security officials and residents clashed over the violent clearance of poppy crops in two Badakhshan districts, leaving two dead and sparking rare protests.

Afghanistan was the largest producer of opium before poppy cultivation was banned in a decree by the Taliban supreme leader in April 2022.

Farmers have been encouraged to plant different crops, but none compete with the financial draw of the poppy, leading some to continue to discreetly cultivate small plots.

An AFP journalist saw Taliban authorities searching homes and detaining dozens of people near the scene.

Images posted on social media but not immediately verified by AFP showed a charred motorcycle and a police truck riddled with holes.

Eyewitness Aminullah, who did not want to give his full name, said he heard a huge explosion and saw that a convoy of Taliban authorities had been hit.

“Immediately the security forces cleared the area of people,” he told AFP.

The number of bombings and suicide attacks in Afghanistan has fallen since the Taliban ended their insurgency after ousting the US-backed government and returning to power in August 2021.

However, a number of armed groups, including the Islamic State group, remain a threat, with regular reports of explosions that go unconfirmed by authorities.

The post Three Policemen Killed in Bomb Attack in Afghanistan appeared first on The Defense Post.

Interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said that “an unknown armed person shot at civilian worshippers in a mosque” in Herat province’s Guzara district on Monday at around 9:00 pm (1630 GMT).

“Six civilians were martyred and one civilian was injured,” he wrote on social media platform X early Tuesday morning.

Locals said the mosque served the minority Shiite community in a district just south of the provincial capital of Herat city, and the imam and a three-year-old child were among those killed.

They also said a team of three gunmen staged the attack, contradicting the official account.

“One of them was outside and two of them came inside the mosque, shooting the worshippers,” said 60-year-old Ibrahim Akhlaqi, the brother of the slain imam. “It was in the middle of the prayers.”

“Whoever was in the mosque has either been martyred or wounded,” added 23-year-old Sayed Murtaza Hussaini.

Islamic State Threat

While no group has claimed the attack, the regional chapter of the Islamic State (IS) group is the largest security threat in Afghanistan and has frequently targeted Shiite communities.

The Taliban government has pledged to protect religious and ethnic minorities since returning to power in August 2021, but rights monitors say they’ve done little to make good on that promise.

The most notorious attack linked to IS since the Taliban takeover was in 2022 when at least 53 people — including 46 girls and young women — were slain in the suicide bombing of an education center.

Taliban officials blamed IS for the attack, which happened in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital Kabul.

Afghanistan’s new rulers claim to have ousted IS from the country and are highly sensitive to suggestions the group has found safe haven there since the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Taliban authorities have frequently given death tolls lower than other sources after bombings and gun attacks, or otherwise downplayed them, in an apparent attempt to minimise security threats.

A United Nations Security Council report released in January said there had been a decrease in IS attacks in Afghanistan because of “counter-terrorism efforts by the Taliban.”

But the report said IS still had “substantial” recruitment in the country and that the militant group had “the ability to project a threat into the region and beyond.”

The Islamic State chapter spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia claimed responsibility for the March attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, killing more than 140 people.

It was the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.

The post Gunman Kills Six in Attack on Afghan Mosque: Govt Spokesman appeared first on The Defense Post.

Border tensions between the two countries have risen since the Taliban government seized power in 2021, with Islamabad claiming militant groups are carrying out regular attacks from Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft “bombed civilian homes” in Khost and Paktika provinces near the border with Pakistan at around 3:00 am (2230 GMT Sunday), adding that all of the dead were women and children.

Afghanistan’s defense ministry said its border forces retaliated in response to the airstrikes, targeting Pakistan’s military points along the disputed border with “heavy weapons.”

“The country’s defense and security forces are ready to respond to any aggressive actions and will defend their territorial integrity at all cost,” spokesman Enayatullah Khwarizmi said on social media platform X.

Both sides reported cross-border skirmishes in the region into Monday afternoon, the latest in a string of such incidents on the disputed frontier.

The Taliban government “strongly condemns these attacks and calls this reckless action a violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty,” Mujahid said in his statement.

“Such incidents can have very bad consequences which will be out (of) Pakistan’s control.”

Drones and Jets

Malak Noor Khan, a tribal elder in the Sperah district of Khost, said he saw at least four explosives dropped from drones and jets and that multiple homes were destroyed, one with a woman and her children inside.

“When the drone came first, we all, including women and children, left our homes and went into the trees on the mountainside, it was very cold as there was snow on the ground,” he told AFP.

“All those targeted are refugees from Waziristan, they are not militants, they are not terrorists,” he said.

Large numbers of civilians fled Waziristan in 2014 when the Pakistani military launched an operation to wipe out militant bases in the tribal areas, many crossing over the border into Afghanistan.

A local government official in Pakistan’s border regions, who asked not to be named, told AFP residents had been instructed to evacuate the area amid the skirmishes.

“Announcements have been made in mosques to empty some areas in Kurram and North Waziristan as clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan continue on and off at the border,” he added.

Increasing Militancy

Areas along the border have long been a stronghold for militant groups such as Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has increased its attacks on Pakistani security forces in the porous border regions.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s Taliban government of harboring TTP fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity. Kabul has denied the allegations.

A senior government official based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who asked not to be named, told AFP that despite repeated complaints, “Afghanistan does not seem to be taking the matter seriously.”

Regional analyst Saira Aqil said that while increased attacks in Pakistan are “prompting inevitable retaliation,” the country “cannot afford to lose Afghanistan as an ally.”

“Pakistan must bear this in mind, as maintaining a friendly relationship with Afghanistan presents greater opportunities than having them as an adversary,” added Aqil, a professor at the defense and strategic studies department of Quaid I Azam University in Islamabad.

The Afghan foreign ministry said it had summoned the head of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul to protest Monday’s strikes in a statement posted on X.

It called on Pakistan’s new government to “not allow some circles to complicate the relationship between two neighbouring Muslim countries” — an apparent reference to certain Pakistani military leaders.

In 2022, Taliban authorities said Pakistani military helicopters carried out strikes along the Afghan side of the border that killed at least 47 people, including 20 children.

Monday’s strikes came after seven Pakistani troops were killed in an attack by an armed group inside Pakistan’s territory on Saturday, for which the country’s President Asif Ali Zardari vowed retaliation.

“Pakistan has decided that whoever will enter our borders, homes or country and commit terror, we will respond to them strongly, regardless of who it is or from which country,” he said while attending the funeral prayers of the soldiers, who included a lieutenant colonel.

A Pakistani military statement said security forces also carried out an operation overnight Sunday in North Waziristan district, which borders Khost and Paktika, killing eight militants accused of being involved in Saturday’s attack.

The TTP issued a statement denying that Monday’s strikes targeted the group, saying their members operate from within Pakistan.

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