Oct 1, 8:01 AM
Pakistan’s strikes on Afghanistan leave two versions of the same night
Islamabad says it hit armed group camps and killed 22 fighters; Kabul says the attacks in Kunar and Helmand killed women and children and destroyed homes.
Air attacks across a border rarely produce clarity. They produce competing claims, damaged homes and the usual scramble to control the story before anyone has checked the facts. That is exactly what happened after Pakistan said it struck armed group camps and hideouts in Afghanistan and killed an estimated 22 fighters.
The Pakistan Ministry of Information said the attacks were carried out on Thursday and hit two locations. Kabul’s version is markedly different. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s government, said the strikes took place late on Wednesday in Kunar and Helmand provinces, destroyed three houses, and killed at least nine people while wounding 11 others.
The Afghan side says the dead were women and children. Islamabad, for its part, presents the operation as a strike against armed groups using Afghan territory. Al Jazeera said it could not independently verify either casualty claim, which is hardly surprising; in border conflicts, verification is usually the first casualty and common sense the second.
Mujahid also said the attacks were an aggression and a crime against accepted principles. That is the sort of language governments reach for when the facts are disputed and the political temperature is rising. The real issue, though, is less rhetorical and more practical: two neighbours are again trading accusations while their border remains a corridor for violence.
The latest strikes come after three months of relative calm, a phrase that now sounds almost optimistic. Pakistan accuses Kabul of harbouring armed groups, including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which it says stage cross-border attacks on its territory. Afghanistan denies that charge and says Pakistani attacks have instead hit civilian homes, with women and children paying the price.
That is the unpleasant arithmetic of this dispute. One side counts fighters, the other counts families, and neither account produces much confidence in the other. Three houses destroyed in Kunar and Helmand may not sound like much in diplomatic language, but in a border quarrel they are enough to reopen every old grievance at once. The only thing more predictable than the strikes themselves is the mutual denial that follows them.
Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com
