Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of air attacks on homes in Kabul, Kandahar

Afghanistan’s Taliban government has accused Pakistan of targeting civilian homes in overnight air attacks, killing four people in the capital Kabul and the southern province of Kandahar, as fighting between the two neighbours entered its third week, overshadowed by the United States-Israel war on Iran igniting the Middle East.

Women and children were among those killed in the attacks, according to the Taliban.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X Friday that Pakistan’s aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport.

Pakistani security sources said they carried out “successful airstrikes” against “four terrorist hideouts” in Kabul and frontier provinces, and destroyed an oil storage facility at Kandahar airport.

Abdul Wahid, a 29-year-old daily labourer, told the AFP news agency that he and four family members were wounded when his house was hit at about 12:10am local time (19:10 GMT on Thursday).

“Suddenly, a noise came from another house. I don’t know what happened afterwards. All these bricks fell on me. Women and children were under the rubble as well,” he said.

“I was there for 10 minutes as if it was my last breath. Then my neighbours came and removed the bricks … and took us to the clinic.”

Calls for restraint from the international community have gone unheeded by both sides.

On Thursday, the Taliban government said four members of the same family, including two children, were killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.

The deaths reported on Thursday brought the toll to seven people killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday in cross-border clashes, according to authorities in Kabul. That could rise with the latest attacks on Friday.

Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along their shared border in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air attacks on the Pakistan Taliban, just two days before the US and Israel attacked Iran, starting a sprawling regional war.

Pakistan maintains that it does not target civilians, and casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the Pakistan Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan, and from the ISIS (ISIL) affiliate in Khorasan province. Afghan authorities deny the charge.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said 56 civilians have been killed there, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations from February 26 to March 5.

Pakistani officials have confirmed about 12 soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the latest bout of fighting, while the Taliban claims to have killed more than 150.

About 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN.