Pakistan has carried out strikes on an Afghan military facility in Kandahar after Taliban drones targeted civilian areas and military installations across the country.
The strikes on Saturday came after Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the overnight drone attacks, warning Kabul it had “crossed a red line by attempting to target our civilians”.
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Pakistan’s military said the drones, described as locally produced and rudimentary, were intercepted before reaching their targets, though falling debris wounded two children in Quetta and civilians in Kohat and Rawalpindi.
A security source told the AFP news agency that airspace around the capital, Islamabad, had been temporarily closed when the drones were detected.
Islamabad said the Kandahar facility had been used both to launch the drone attacks and as a base for cross-border rebel activity.
The exchange marks the sharpest single escalation yet in a conflict that has been building since late February, when Pakistan launched military operations against what it said were Pakistan Taliban fighters sheltering on Afghan soil.
Islamabad also accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the ISIL (ISIS) group’s Khorasan province affiliate.
The Taliban government has denied both charges.
The drone attacks followed Pakistani strikes on Kabul and eastern border provinces in Afghanistan overnight on Thursday into Friday. The Pakistani attacks killed four people in the capital, women and children among them, and two more in the east.
In the Pul-e-Charkhi neighbourhood of Kabul, one resident described being buried under rubble after his home was hit, saying he lay there believing it was his “last breath” before neighbours pulled him free.
A local representative told AFP that those killed were “ordinary people, poor people” with no involvement in the conflict.
Pakistani aircraft also struck a fuel depot belonging to the private airline Kam Air near Kandahar airport, which an airport official said supplied aid organisations, including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The official added that there were “no military installations” at the site.
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence claimed that its forces had captured a Pakistani border post and killed 14 soldiers.
Islamabad dismissed the assertion as baseless, with the prime minister’s spokesman accusing the Taliban of “weaving fantasies” rather than dismantling rebel networks on Afghan territory.
The UN mission in Afghanistan says at least 75 civilians have been killed and 193 injured since hostilities intensified on February 26, a toll that includes 24 children.
According to the UN refugee agency, about 115,000 people have been forced from their homes.
The crisis is unfolding as the wider region remains engulfed by the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began just two days after the Pakistan-Afghanistan clashes escalated.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi has urged both sides to pursue dialogue, warning that further force would only deepen the crisis, though his appeal came as Pakistani jets were already in the air over Kandahar.
