Mosharraf Zaidi, the prime minister’s spokesperson for foreign media, said that the Afghan Taliban regime initiated unprovoked firing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham and Tirah,challenging the territorial sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan.
In a post on the social media platform X, he said, “Pakistan’s security forces responded immediately and effectively, silencing the Taliban aggression.”
He said that any further provocation would be responded to “immediately and severely”. He said Pakistan would “continue to protect its citizens and guard its territorial integrity”.
The development comes after Pakistan targeted terrorist camps and hideouts overnight in the Nangarhar and Paktika provinces of Afghanistan over the weekend, with an official saying that “more than 80” terrorists had been killed in the air strikes.
The strikes were the most extensive military engagement between the two neighbours since border clashes broke out in October last year.
According to an information ministry statement issued in the early hours of Sunday, the strikes were carried out in response to a number of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan — such as the suicide bombing at an imambargah in Islamabad and a number of attacks in Bannu and Bajaur.
“Pakistan has conclusive evidence that these acts of terrorism were perpetrated by Khwarij at the behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers,” it said.
The information ministry said that in a retributive response, Pakistan carried out “intelligence-based selective targeting of seven terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Pakistani Taliban [Fitna al Khwarij] and its affiliates, and [Islamic State-Khorasan] at the border region of Pakistan-Afghan border with precision and accuracy”.
Fitna al Khwarij is the term the state uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“Despite repeated efforts by Pakistan to urge the Afghan Taliban Regime to take verifiable measures to deny use of Afghan territory by terrorist groups and foreign proxies to carry out terrorist activities in Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban Regime failed to undertake any substantive action against them,” the statement noted.
