Pakistani security forces conducted a ground operation based on intelligence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Sunday, followed by "targeted strikes" against militant hideouts and sanctuaries, killing 29 combatants, authorities said.
In a message posted on X, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the operation was launched in response to multiple militant attacks across the country. There was no immediate reaction from the Afghan side.
Pakistan has seen a resurgence of militant attacks targeting police and security forces in recent years. Authorities have blamed most of the violence on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and allied militant groups.
This strike comes a day after an attack by militants armed with rifles and explosives on the regional headquarters of the Rangers, a paramilitary unit, in the southern port city of Karachi, which killed three soldiers.
Security forces killed three assailants and arrested another, whom the army identified as a wounded Afghan national.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack in a statement released Saturday evening.
Mr. Tarar emphasized that Pakistan's latest operation along the Afghan border targeted hideouts and shelters of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khwarij, a term used by Pakistan to refer to the Pakistani Taliban.
The TTP is a distinct militant group from the Afghan Taliban, although the two are allied. The Afghan Taliban regained power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
These latest operations risk further straining already tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Sunday's cross-border strikes and ground operation came less than three weeks after the Pakistani army launched airstrikes against what it called militant hideouts in Afghanistan. They ended about a month of relative calm that had followed what Islamabad called an "open war" between the two neighboring countries, despite international efforts to negotiate a lasting peace.
This escalation follows months of retaliatory military actions between the two countries. Hundreds have been killed in cross-border fighting since February, when Afghanistan launched retaliatory strikes after Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Afghan soil.
Several rounds of peace talks mediated by the international community have failed to achieve a lasting ceasefire. China also hosted the two parties in April, and Beijing later said that Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed not to escalate their conflict and to seek a solution.
Since last year, Pakistan has conducted multiple strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan, targeting suspected TTP hideouts and other militants.
Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out deadly attacks in Pakistan, especially the TTP. Kabul denies these allegations.
