Pakistan Says 22 Killed in Afghanistan Airstrikes; Kabul Says Nine Civilians Died

Pakistan carried out air attacks on two locations inside Afghanistan late on September 30, saying the strikes killed 22 fighters at militant hideouts. Afghanistan's Taliban government gives a sharply different account, saying the same strikes killed at least nine civilians and wounded eleven others.

What Pakistan says it hit

Islamabad said the strikes targeted camps and hideouts in the Chogam area of Shultan district in Kunar province, and the Safar area of Garmsher district in Helmand province. Pakistani officials said the targets belonged to groups they refer to as Fitna al-Khawarij — the state's label for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — and Fitna al-Hindustan, the term Pakistan uses for Balochistan-focused militant networks it alleges are backed by India. Large quantities of weapons and ammunition stored at the sites were destroyed, according to Pakistani officials, who said the operation was based on credible intelligence with targets selected and struck with precision.

What Kabul says happened

Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid gave a different account, saying the strikes hit residential areas and killed at least nine civilians, including women and children, while wounding eleven others and destroying three houses. "We condemn this act and consider it an aggression and crime against all accepted principles," Mujahid said. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai also condemned the strikes on Kunar and Helmand, calling them an act of aggression and a violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty.

As with most cross-border strikes since fighting between the two governments escalated into what Pakistan's defence minister called "open war" in late February 2026, the two sides' casualty figures could not be independently verified by the time of this report.

Part of a longer campaign

The September 30 strikes are the latest in a campaign Pakistan has waged against what it says are TTP safe havens on Afghan soil since February, when cross-border fighting first broke out along the Durand Line. Pakistan has repeatedly said it will not hold back from striking targets inside Afghanistan as long as Kabul does not act against militants it accuses of operating from Afghan territory — a position Taliban officials reject, saying they do not permit such activity. We've covered the broader standoff in our coverage of Pakistani drones shot down near the border and earlier Khost-area airstrikes in September.

Why this keeps recurring

Pakistan's security establishment has consistently tied the surge in TTP attacks on Pakistani soil to sanctuary across the border, while Kabul has consistently denied providing one. Neither position has shifted in the seven months since the conflict began, and mediation efforts by Qatar, Turkiye, and China have produced only short-lived ceasefires rather than a lasting settlement. The economic costs of that unresolved standoff — closed border crossings, disrupted trade, and a security climate that has already slowed at least one major foreign investment decision — are a running thread in our broader coverage of the US-Iran war's spillover effects on Pakistan, where regional instability of a different kind has produced a similar pattern of economic disruption with no clean resolution in sight.

Build Better Pakistan's Security Desk is tracking the Pakistan-Afghanistan border conflict and will update this piece as casualty figures are confirmed or revised.