Pakistan says 26 militants killed in strikes on Afghan border

Pakistani strikes on militant hideouts along the Afghanistan border killed at least 26 militants, Islamabad said, but Taliban authorities in Kabul said the same attacks hit three provinces and left 13 civilians dead, including 11 children. The clash over the toll underscored how quickly the frontier can slide from counterterrorism operation to cross-border crisis, with each side accusing the other of fueling instability.

Pakistan’s Information Ministry said the military carried out “precise and calibrated” strikes against camps, hideouts, an ammunition cache and a facility linked to militant commanders. Ataullah Tarar tied the operation to recent attacks inside Pakistan, including the June 9 assault on a Federal Constabulary post in Hassan Khel near Peshawar that killed six personnel and wounded six others. Pakistani officials said the targets were linked to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which Islamabad calls Fitna al Khawarij.

The Afghan Taliban government gave a sharply different account. Zabihullah Mujahid said the strikes hit Khost, Kunar and Paktika provinces, while Muhammad Yunus Yawar said the dead included 11 children, one woman and one elderly man. The United Nations also said civilians were killed and that most of the dead were women and children, widening pressure on both governments to explain how an operation aimed at militant sanctuaries produced such sharply disputed casualties.

The strikes ended about a month of relative calm between Pakistan and Afghanistan and reopened a security crisis that has been building since late 2025, when cross-border violence and attacks by the TTP intensified. For Islamabad, the operation signaled that it would keep hitting what it sees as militant infrastructure on the Afghan side of the border. For Kabul, the civilian death claims turned the raids into another grievance in a long-running dispute over sovereignty, insurgent sanctuaries and the reach of Pakistan’s security campaign.

That tension matters far beyond the battlefield. Border communities on both sides remain exposed to retaliatory attacks, displacement and fear, while the two governments remain locked in a cycle where military action, militant movement and Taliban rule collide. Whether these strikes prove to be a one-off raid or another step in a worsening regional breakdown will depend on whether the border quiets or the cycle of accusations and reprisal starts again.