PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan said it carried out airstrikes early Thursday against 10 sites in Afghanistan that it alleged were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, marking a sharp escalation in recent fighting between the two countries.

The strikes threaten ongoing international efforts to mediate tensions between Islamabad and Kabul. China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been involved in efforts to broker a lasting peace between the two sides.

In Afghanistan’s southeastern Khost province, Mustaghfir Gurbaz, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said Pakistani aircraft targeted several locations, including areas near the provincial capital, at around 3:30 a.m. He said the strikes did not cause any casualties.

Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced the strikes in a post on X after Pakistani officials accused Afghan Taliban forces of launching eight drones and shelling Pakistani border posts.

According to Pakistani officials, the attacks came after Pakistani troops stopped what they described as an attempted cross-border infiltration by militants.

Afghan authorities did not immediately comment on Thursday’s strikes. However, Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied a day earlier that Afghan forces had launched drone attacks against Pakistan.

The conflicting accounts could not be independently verified.

The latest strikes came just two days after Pakistani fighter jets attacked locations in eastern Afghanistan that Islamabad described as militant hideouts. Pakistan said 28 militants were killed in those strikes, while Afghan authorities reported that at least three civilians were killed and four others wounded. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan confirmed the civilian casualties, and Kabul formally protested the attack.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of allowing militant groups to operate from Afghan territory and carry out attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul has denied the allegations.

Tarar said Pakistan had carried out the latest strikes against what he described as military targets connected to attacks on Pakistan. He characterized the strikes as limited to identified military objectives.

Pakistani officials also said Wednesday that security forces had intercepted eight rudimentary drones allegedly launched by the Afghan Taliban before they could reach the northwestern city of Kohat and the border town of Torkham.

They further claimed that Afghan forces had used mortars and other heavy weapons against Pakistani border positions. Pakistani forces responded with artillery fire aimed at Taliban border posts, mortar positions and defensive sites, according to the officials.

Four Pakistani officials provided details about the latest fighting on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the escalation.

The tensions have intensified following several deadly attacks in northwestern Pakistan. On Monday, a shootout with militants in Hangu district, near the Afghan border, killed six Pakistani security personnel.

Days earlier, a suicide bomber attacked a mosque inside a police compound in nearby Kohat. Eight gunmen then stormed the compound, triggering a 20-hour battle that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers.

No group has claimed responsibility for those attacks. Pakistani authorities have blamed the violence on the Pakistani Taliban and allied militant groups.

The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have increased attacks against Pakistani security forces since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.

Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also expressed concern about what he described as the presence of more than two dozen anti-Pakistani militant groups in Afghanistan.

SOURCE: Associated Press (AP), Riaz Khan and Munir Ahmed, September 24, 2026.