In the early morning of March 18, Pakistani air strikes on two border provinces with Afghanistan killed eight people. Two days ago, the Pakistani Taliban launched a terrorist attack in North Waziristan, killing seven soldiers, and tensions between the two countries escalated.

At around 3 a.m. on Monday, Pakistan Air Force fighter jets bombed Afghanistan’s Dubai in Al-Raman in the Barmar district of Paktika province and the Sepera district of Khost province.

Three women and three children were reportedly killed in Paktika, and two women died when a house collapsed in Khost.

The Taliban said the Pakistani warplanes were targeting “civilians” and condemned the action in a strongly worded statement. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemned the attacks and said the reckless act violated Afghan territory. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has long experience of fighting for freedom against world superpowers and will not allow anyone to invade its territory,” wrote Zabiullah Mujahid, chief spokesman of the Afghan Taliban.

The strikes marked the first such action since Pakistan targeted militant hideouts in Afghanistan in 2022. Although Islamabad has never officially acknowledged the attacks.

On Saturday, March 16, a suicide bomber from a newly formed insurgent group rammed a truck packed with explosives into a military post in Mir Ali, a town in North Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan. Bir Pakhtunkhwa Province.

While Jaish-e-Fursan-e-Muhammad claimed responsibility for the attack, Pakistani security officials believe it was primarily carried out by members of the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, according to the Associated Press Taliban Movement”. TTP, an illegal organization that often targets Pakistani soldiers and police.

North Waziristan has historically been a militant enclave and was the target of Pakistan’s prolonged military offensive and U.S. drone strikes during the 9/11 occupation of Afghanistan. Islamabad accuses the Taliban government in Kabul of harboring TTP militants and allowing them to carry out attacks on Pakistani soil with impunity. Kabul has always denied the accusations.

Pakistan is believed to play a key role in the Taliban’s fight against the US-backed democratic government in Kabul and hopes to benefit from close ties when the hardline Islamist rulers return to the country’s capital in August 2021. But that seems far from the case. reality now.

Instead, tensions prevail between the neighbors over a range of issues, including border claims, immigration and Pakistan’s influence on the interim government in Kabul.

In April 2022, the Pakistani military carried out similar pre-dawn air strikes on multiple targets in Afghanistan’s Khost and Kunar provinces, killing at least 47 people and injuring 23 others. Relations between the two countries further deteriorated last year when Pakistan forced thousands of Afghans to leave, citing insufficient documentation.