Pak airstrikes claims lives of 8 civilians in Afghanistan

Pakistan on Monday conducted  airstrikes in bordering provinces of Afghanistan, killing eight civilians, including three children, an Afghan interim government spokesperson said.

The senior Afghan interim government official, Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that Pakistan hit neighboring provinces of Paktika and Khost along the border.

Mujahid, in a statement, alleged that Pakistani aircraft had carried out the airstrikes on Afghan soil.  

The Foreign Office and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) have yet to comment on the development. Dawn.com has reached out to both of them, reported Dawn newspaper.

According to the report, Mujahid told that at “around 3am, Pakistani aircraft bombarded civilian homes” in Khost and Paktika provinces claiming that all eight people killed were women and children.
He said that planes had bombed the Laman area in Paktika’s Barmal district and the Afghan-Dubai area in Khost’s Spera district.

Alleging that “houses of common people were targeted”, he said three women and as many children were killed in Paktika and a house collapsed while two women were killed in Khost, where a house was destroyed as well, it said.

The strikes come a day after President Asif Ali Zardari  promised to retaliate after seven soldiers, including two officers, were killed in a terrorist attack on a security forces’ post in North Waziristan on Saturday.

The officials said that Hafiz Gul Bahadar group, who took the responsibility for the attack, operated from the Afghan side of the border, mostly from Khost.

The banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) also confirmed the strikes. The strikes come amid growing tension between the two nations.

Meanwhile, cross-border clashes were also reported at Kurram District’s Parachinar on Monday. Malik Nazeer, a resident of the border area of Borki, that people on both sides of the border have started evacuating the area, the report added.