(UnitedVoice.com) – Tensions in the Middle East are high. There are currently multiple conflicts taking place across the region. Now, Pakistan has launched air strikes on Afghanistan.
Tension between the two Arab nations erupted on March 18. The Pakistani military launched airstrikes overnight into Afghanistan. They were targeting suspected hideouts of an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban. The strike came two days after a terrorist group, Jaish-e-Fursan-e-Muhammad, carried out a suicide bombing and shooting that left seven Pakistani soldiers dead.
The Associated Press reported Pakistan’s Foreign Office confirmed the airstrikes, saying they were “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations in the border regions inside Afghanistan.”
Muhammad Ali, a Pakistan-based security expert, said the Pakistani government’s patience has run out for “Afghan interim government’s continued hospitality for terrorists conducting frequent attacks on Pakistan” from inside their own country.
The Taliban, Afghanistan’s government, claimed five women and three children died in the strikes. They claimed the strikes hit the homes of “ordinary people,” leading to the deaths of innocent civilians. Zabihullah Mujahid, a government spokesperson, said Kabul “strongly condemns” the “reckless action” carried out by the Pakistani government.
The Afghan government has insisted that they don’t allow the Pakistani Taliban to carry out attacks from Afghanistan. It accused Pakistan of violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty. In a social media post, Mujahid said Afghanistan has long struggled for freedom against other nations and “does not allow anyone to invade its territory.”
In response to the strike, the Afghan government alleged it sent its own forces into Pakistan and targeted “military centers along the border with heavy weapons.”
Tensions between the two nations have been on the rise for quite a while. Last year, Pakistan issued an order expelling Afghans who had been living in the country without valid papers. The move was shocking because Pakistan has long been the home for more than a million Afghans who fled their own country during the Soviet Union’s occupation from 1979-1989.
Copyright 2024, UnitedVoice.com
