Pakistan carries out deadly airstrikes along Afghanistan border

Pakistan has said at least 25 people were killed in airstrikes it launched targeting militants in eastern Afghanistan , as the Afghan government reported dozens of civilian casualties. Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the operations were aimed at a group that it blames for a deadly weekend attack in Karachi, although Afghan authorities have repeatedly denied their territory harbours militants. The strikes are the latest flare-up of violence between the two countries whose relationship has been fraught since the Taliban government took power in 2021, and follow a weeks-long war that erupted in February. The Taliban government said on Monday the airstrikes in three eastern provinces killed or wounded dozens of civilians. Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the military action, calling it a “cowardly act of aggression”. The strikes come a day after militants armed with guns and explosives targeted the regional headquarters of the paramilitary Rangers in the southern port city of Karachi, killing three soldiers. Security forces killed three attackers and arrested another assailant, whom the military identified as an Afghan national in wounded condition. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement on Saturday night. …