Afghan security forces patrol the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Torkham, in Nangarhar province, in February 2023. SHAFIULLAH KAKAR / AFP Forty-six people were killed by Pakistani airstrikes in the east of Afghanistan, reported Wednesday, December 25, the spokesperson for the Taliban government, Zabihullah Mujahid. “ [Mardi] evening, Pakistani strikes were carried out in Barmal district of Paktika province,” the spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The total number of martyrs is forty-six, most of whom are children and women,” added Zabihullah Mujahid, specifying that there were also “six injured”. The Afghan Defense Ministry denounced “barbaric” strikes and promised to respond to this “aggression”. “The Islamic Emirate [d’Afghanistan] will not leave this cowardly attack unanswered, but will rather consider the defense of its territory and its sovereignty as an inalienable right,” the ministry said in a statement published Tuesday evening. Pakistan has struck “terrorist dens” in Afghanistan, a Pakistani security official told AFP on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity, accusing Kabul of allowing anti-Pakistani attacks to be prepared on its territory. ground. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Pakistan, faced with an unprecedented resurgence of Taliban violence Read later A very porous border Since the return to power of the Taliban in Kabul in 2021, border relations between the two countries have worsened. Pakistan claims that armed groups, such as the Pakistani Taliban Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), carry out planned attacks from Afghan soil, across a very porous border. On Saturday, sixteen Pakistani soldiers were killed in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban against a military base near the border with Afghanistan. According to Zabihullah Mujahid, refugees from Waziristan were among the victims of Tuesday’s strikes. Waziristan is one of the former semi-autonomous tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, where the Pakistani army carried out numerous operations against insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by the United States. Many people from tribal areas took refuge in Afghanistan after the launch in 2014 of a military operation which made it possible to drive out the TTP. Shooting by the Pakistani army against eastern Afghanistan in April 2022 left around fifty dead, Islamabad having demanded from Kabul “severe measures” against the militants who attack its territory. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Afghanistan, failure of an American attempt to promote the “moderate” wing of the Taliban Read later Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content
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