Kabul summons Pakistani envoy over airstrikes inside Afghanistan

ISTANBUL (AA) – Kabul summoned the top Pakistani diplomat in the country on Monday after Pakistan launched pre-dawn air strikes inside Afghanistan that killed at least eight people, an official statement said.

Interim Afghan Foreign Ministry said Kabul lodged a protest with Islamabad over the attacks.

Earlier on Monday, interim Afghan administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had said Pakistani military aircraft struck homes, killing eight people, including three children and five women in the southeastern Paktika and Khost provinces.

Islamabad confirmed that its forces carried out the attacks against ‘militant targets’ and assured respect for the sovereignty of Afghanistan.

Later, Kabul launched its own retaliatory attacks, hitting Pakistani military installations across the border.

The airstrikes into Afghanistan came after at least seven Pakistani troops were killed by militants in North Waziristan’s Mir Ali area on Saturday.

Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line – the de facto border region between the two countries – on the grounds that it was created by a British colonial regime “to divide ethnic Pashtuns.”

The 2,640-kilometer (1,640-mile) border was established in 1893 as part of an agreement between India under British colonial rule and Abdur Rahman Khan, the then-ruler of Afghanistan.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share 18 crossing points and the most frequently used for trade and people movement are Torkham and Chaman, which connect Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s southern province.

– Pakistan confirms airstrikes –

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch confirmed the airstrikes, saying Islamabad carried out intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations in the border regions inside Afghanistan.

“The target of today’s operation was the ‘terrorists’ belonging to Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group which, along with TTP, is responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and law enforcement officials,” Baloch said in a statement.

“Over the past two years, Pakistan has repeatedly conveyed its serious concerns to the Interim Afghan Government over the presence of terror outfits including TTP inside Afghanistan,” she said, adding that these “terrorists” pose a grave threat to Pakistan’s security and have consistently used Afghan territory to launch terror attacks inside Pakistani territory.

“Pakistan accords prime importance to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. It has, therefore, always prioritized dialogue and cooperation to confront the terrorist threat,” she said.