Will give appropriate response: Kabul condemns Pakistan’s attack on Afghan territory

Afghanistan on Tuesday issued a blistering denunciation of Pakistani air strikes that tore through the eastern provinces of Paktika, Khost and Kunar, calling the attacks a grave affront to its sovereignty and a stark violation of international norms.

According to Kabul, the strikes — launched under the cover of night — left behind scenes of devastation, killing at least 10 civilians, among them nine children, after a residential home in Khost was hit. Separate bombings in Kunar and Paktika wounded four more civilians, further inflaming tensions along an already volatile frontier.

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the caretaker Afghan government, took to his social media platform to deliver a sharply worded rebuke.
“These airstrikes constitute a direct assault on Afghanistan’s sovereignty,” he wrote, accusing Pakistan of trampling on internationally recognised principles. He declared that the attacks, driven by what he called flawed intelligence, served only to deepen mistrust and expose the “ongoing failures” of Pakistan’s military establishment.

Mujahid reiterated that Afghanistan reserved the right to defend its soil, warning that an “appropriate response will be given at the appropriate time.”
In a grim recounting of the night’s events, he said the strike struck just past midnight in the Mughalgai area of Khost’s Gurbuz district, obliterating the home of a local resident, Waliat Khan, son of Qazi Mir.
“Nine children — five boys and four girls — and one woman were martyred,” he wrote, adding that the house was reduced to rubble.

He confirmed that similar air strikes rattled Kunar and Paktika, leaving several more civilians injured as explosions echoed across the mountainous borderlands.

The Afghan government’s statement, delivered in the strongest terms, condemned the assault as a “criminal act” and reaffirmed Kabul’s duty to safeguard its “air and ground borders” as both a sovereign obligation and a religious right.

Tuesday’s air strikes have once again stirred fears of a renewed cycle of confrontation, coming after a brief and fragile pause in cross-border hostilities that followed fierce clashes in October. As the dust settles over the battered homes in Afghanistan’s east, the spectre of escalating tensions looms large, threatening to destabilise a frontier where peace has long been elusive.

With IANS inputs