Why Pakistan’s Afghan air strikes aren’t stopping armed attacks

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan struck targets of what it claimed were hideouts of an armed group in three Afghan provinces overnight and summoned Kabul’s envoy on Monday morning, after an assault on a Sindh Rangers base in Karachi over the weekend killed three paramilitary personnel and wounded four others. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced on X that security forces had conducted strikes in Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces, claiming 25 fighters were killed. A separate ground operation in Bajaur in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday night killed several members of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), including a senior commander, Tarar said, adding that large quantities of weapons and ammunition were also destroyed. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list The JuA, which claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack, is a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban (Pakistan Taliban, or TTP), a group behind many of the deadliest bombings and killings that Pakistan has suffered in recent years. On Monday, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Tahir Andrabi confirmed that Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires — the country’s top diplomat in Pakistan — issued a demarche, a formal diplomatic protest. Pakistan’s ambassador in Kabul delivered a separate demarche to the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs the same day. “Afghan soil and Afghan nationals continue to be used to orchestrate terrorist attacks inside Pakistan,” Andrabi said. …