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Border strikes and deaths
Pakistan carried out an intelligence-based ground operation and what it described as "calibrated strikes" on terrorist hideouts and safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, killing 29 militants, according to AP as cited by The Times of India.
The Times of India said the operation began in Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where four militants including a "high-value" commander identified as Khan Farosh were killed, before Pakistan conducted strikes on three militant targets in Afghanistan’s Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces.
In a separate report, IRNA said Islamabad announced counterterrorism operations at three points inside Afghan soil and that official sources put the death toll at 30 people during the operation.
IRNA further stated that Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said precise strikes in the border region against hideouts and safe havens of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan resulted in the death of 29 members of that group.
Karachi attack context
The Times of India linked the border operation to the day-after attack on the Sindh Rangers headquarters in Karachi, where militants armed with guns and explosives killed security personnel.
It said Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X that the operation targeted hideouts of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, the term Islamabad uses for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
IRNA said the operations inside Afghan soil were announced one day after a terrorist attack in Karachi that Pakistan claimed was planned from Afghanistan, and it referenced the attack on the Rangers' camp in Karachi.
IRNA also said Pakistan claimed that in its operation against those behind the Karachi attack, it arrested an Afghan national named Usman Ali, and that Pakistani news networks broadcast a video of confessions attributed to him.
Stakes, threats, and fallout
IRNA said the Pakistani army implicitly threatened revenge in a Sunday morning statement as Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack.
“Relatives of this former serviceman say Hashmatullah disappeared four days ago while he was busy working on his farms in Jamal al-Saraj district, Parwan Province”
It also reported that Attaullah Tarar said the strikes were carried out in continuation of Operation Ghazb al-Haq, which Pakistan began in mid-last year against what it calls safe havens of terrorism on Afghan soil.
The Times of India reported that Pakistan said the latest action was launched in response to a series of militant attacks across the country, and it described the operation as destroying terrorist camps and hideouts belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij.
In Afghanistan, Afghanistan International reported that relatives said former army commander Hashmatullah disappeared four days earlier while working on his farms in Jamal al-Saraj district, Parwan Province, and that his body was found on Friday (29 Jawza) with signs of torture, including that his relatives said the killers gouged the commander’s eyes from their sockets.
