KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – At least three civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed and four others wounded in “apparent airstrikes” in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province on Monday, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.
In a statement on X, UNAMA, without naming who carried out the strikes, called for respect for international humanitarian law to prevent civilian casualties. The UN mission said it documented more than 1,100 civilian deaths and injuries resulting from cross-border armed violence in Afghanistan so far in 2026.
Both the Taliban and Pakistan confirmed the strikes, which hit the border provinces of Kunar and Paktika in the early hours of Monday.
According to the Taliban, one strike hit a residential house in Kunar’s Nurgal district at around 3 a.m. local time, killing three family members and wounding four others. Taliban authorities also said Pakistani forces bombed a house and a grocery store in Barmal district of Paktika province but caused no casualties.
Pakistan authorities said its forces targeted suspected militant hideouts responsible for recent attacks inside the country, killing 28 militants, including several suicide bombers.
Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strikes and vowed a response. “We condemn this aggression and oppression, regarding it as a repetition of such crimes. Pakistani military circles have once again committed such a crime to divert attention from their country’s security failures,” he wrote on X. “The Afghans will give a fitting response to this, God willing.”
The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry said it summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires in Kabul and handed him a formal protest over what it described as the “violation of Afghanistan’s airspace and airstrikes on civilian areas and facilities.”
The strikes came after a suicide bombing and 20-hour gun battle on Friday at a district police headquarters compound in the Pakistani city of Kohat, near the Afghanistan border. At least 31 people, including 16 police officers, were killed and more than 100 others wounded in the attack.
Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, a militant group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur and linked to the jihadist group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility. Islamabad says the group operates from Afghanistan.
Relations between Taliban and Islamabad have been strained since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. The latest incidents threaten to end months of relative calm that followed the two sides’ worst clashes in years in February, when Pakistan declared itself in an “open war” with Afghanistan amid a surge in militant attacks on civilians and security forces.
Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering groups that launch attacks in Pakistan, particularly the TTP and Baloch separatists. The Taliban rejects the claims, saying militancy in Pakistan is an internal matter.
Despite mediation efforts by countries including China, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the two sides have yet to reach an agreement to end the hostilities.
