People search for victims after an overnight Pakistani airstrike hit a residential area in the Girdi Kas village of Bihsud district, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan
Sun 22 February 2026:
Pakistan’s military early on Sunday carried out air strikes in Afghanistan, targeting what it called “camps and hideouts” belonging to armed groups behind a spate of recent attacks, including a deadly suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement on X on Sunday that the country’s military conducted “intelligence-based, selective operations” against seven camps and hideouts belonging to the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its affiliates. An affiliate of the ISIL (ISIS) armed group was also targeted in the border region, it said.
The Pakistani ministry said it had “conclusive evidence” that recent attacks in Islamabad, as well as in the northwestern Bajaur and Bannu districts, were perpetrated by fighters “on behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers”.
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The Afghan Ministry of Defence condemned the attacks, saying they “hit a religious school and residential homes” in the border provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika, “resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, including women and children”.
The Afghan ministry condemned the attacks as “a breach of international law and the principles of good neighbourliness”, and promised to respond.
“We hold the Pakistani military responsible for targeting civilians and religious sites. We will respond to these attacks in due course with a measured and appropriate response,” it said.
Nangarhar police told the AFP news agency the bombardment started about midnight (19:30 GMT on Saturday) and hit three districts.
“Civilians were killed. In one house, there were 23 family members. Five wounded people were taken out,” police spokesperson Sayed Tayeeb Hammad said.
Reporting from the scene of an attack in Nangarhar’s Bihsud district, Al Jazeera’s Naser Shadid said at least 17 people were confirmed killed and six others are missing under the rubble of an attacked house.
“A religious centre was also hit in this area, according to Afghanistan’s authorities, and there are unidentified number of casualties there as well,” he said.
The toll from Paktika is not yet known.
People search for victims after a Pakistani air strike hit a residential area in Girdi Kas village, Afghanistan [Aimal Zahir/AFP]
The attacks threaten a fragile ceasefire between the South Asian neighbours, negotiated following deadly border clashes that killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected fighters in October last year.
Pakistan said it has repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s Taliban government to take action to prevent armed groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks, but that Kabul has failed to “undertake any substantive action”.
Pakistan “has always strived to maintain peace and stability in the region”, it added, but said the safety and security of Pakistani citizens remained its top priority.
“The Pakistanis continue to insist that these are intelligence-based operations against camps located inside Afghanistan and hideouts of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and its affiliate groups. It has warned the Afghan authorities on several occasions that they gave their commitment in the Doha agreement that Afghan soil will not be used by any other country,” Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said, referring to the 2020 agreement Taliban signed with the United States, in the Qatari capital, Doha.
Taliban security officials inspect the site of a Pakistani airstrike in Nangarhar, Afghanistan [Samiullah Popal/EPA]
The Pakistani air strikes on Afghanistan came hours after a suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in the Bannu district of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel.
On Monday, a suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a security post in the nearby Bajaur, killing 11 soldiers and a child. Authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national.
On February 6, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives during noon prayers at the Khadija Tul Kubra mosque in Islamabad’s Tarlai Kalan area, killing at least 31 worshippers and wounding 170 others.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Islamabad attack.
While bombings are rare in the heavily guarded capital, the attack on Khadija Tul Kubra was the second such attack in three months, raising fears of a return to violence in Pakistan’s major urban centres.
At the time, the Pakistani military said the “planning, training, and indoctrination for the attack took place in Afghanistan”.
The aftermath of a Pakistani airstrike that hit a residential area in the Girdi Kas village [Aimal Zahir/AFP]
In its statement on Sunday, the Pakistani Information Ministry reiterated its call for the international community to press the Taliban to uphold its commitments under the Doha deal. The ministry said the move was “vital for regional and global peace and security”.
Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP and outlawed Baloch separatist groups. Islamabad accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge the group denies.
The Taliban government has also consistently denied sheltering anti-Pakistan armed groups.
Relations between the neighbouring countries have remained tense following the deadly clashes in October. The fighting followed explosions in Kabul, which Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan.
A ceasefire mediated by Qatar on October 19 has largely held, but subsequent talks in Turkiye’s Istanbul failed to produce a formal agreement.
-Source: Al Jazeera
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