The attacks come days after the Taliban pledged to retaliate for Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban forces targeted “several points” in neighboring Pakistan, the Afghan Defense Ministry said, days after the attack by Pakistani planes. aerial bombardments inside the country.
The Defense Ministry’s statement released on Saturday did not directly say that Pakistan had been hit, but said the attacks were carried out “beyond the ‘hypothetical line'” – an expression used by Afghan authorities to designate a border with Pakistan that they have long disputed.
“Several points beyond the hypothetical line, serving as centers and hideouts for malicious elements and their supporters who organized and coordinated attacks in Afghanistan, were targeted in retaliation from the southeast of the country,” he said. indicated the ministry.
When asked if the statement referred to Pakistan, ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khowarazmi said: “We do not consider this to be the territory of Pakistan, therefore, we cannot confirm the territory, but it was on the other side of the hypothetical line. »
Afghanistan has for decades rejected the border, known as the Durand Line, drawn by British colonial authorities in the 19th century across the mountainous and often lawless tribal belt between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan .
No details on victims or specific areas targeted were provided. The Pakistani military’s public relations office and a foreign ministry spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Separately, a security source told the AFP news agency on Saturday that at least one Pakistani paramilitary soldier had been killed and seven others injured during cross-border firefights with Afghan forces.
Sporadic clashes, including heavy weapons, broke out overnight between border forces on the border between Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Afghanistan’s Khost province, officials from both countries said.
The incidents come after Afghan Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mostly women and children, in airstrikes near the border this week.
Islamabad said it had targeted fighter hideouts along the border, while Afghan authorities warned on Wednesday they would retaliate.
Relations between the two neighbors are strained, with Pakistan saying several attacks on its territory were launched from Afghan soil – an accusation the Afghan Taliban denies.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – which shares a common ideology with its Afghan counterparts – last week claimed responsibility for a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which the Pakistan, killed 16 soldiers.
“We want good relations with them [Afghanistan] but we must stop the TTP from killing our innocents,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet speech on Friday.
“This is our red line.”
