Afghanistan Says Pakistani Cross-Border Strikes on Kunar Province Killed Three and Destroyed Schools and Mosques

Afghanistan accused Pakistan on Monday of carrying out a wave of cross-border strikes that killed at least three people, wounded 14 others, and destroyed two schools, two mosques, and a health clinic in the eastern province of Kunar — the most serious flare-up since a Chinese-mediated truce was supposed to lower the temperature on South Asia's deadliest active border conflict.

Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban government's deputy spokesman, said in a statement issued from Kabul that Pakistani forces opened fire from positions inside the Bajaur tribal district before dawn Monday, hitting villages in Kunar's Asmar and Marawara districts. "These attacks targeted civilian areas — schools, places of worship, and a health center — in clear violation of the agreement reached at the Beijing meetings last month," Fitrat said. The provincial public health department in Asadabad, Kunar's capital, said five of the wounded were children and two were in critical condition.

Pakistan's Information Ministry rejected the Afghan account, saying the strikes were a response to "recent cross-border firing from Afghan territory" that killed nine women and children in Bajaur in March and April. Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant network they say enjoys safe haven across the Afghan border, of orchestrating the deadly attacks. Islamabad has carried out airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan repeatedly since late February, when the broader 2026 Pakistan-Afghanistan war erupted after a Pakistani aircraft bombed what it said were TTP and Islamic State – Khorasan Province camps near Khost.

The renewed clashes are an unwelcome blow to the fragile truce hammered out in April in Xi'an, where Chinese diplomats persuaded the two sides to "explore a comprehensive solution" and refrain from escalation. Beijing has economic and security stakes on both sides of the Durand Line — the contested colonial-era border that neither Kabul nor Islamabad fully recognizes — including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and exploratory copper and lithium contracts in Afghanistan. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday urged "maximum restraint." The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated its March call for "lasting peace" and an investigation into civilian casualties.

The fighting has also reverberated through neighboring countries. India publicly condemned a separate weekend incident in which three Indian nationals were injured by debris from an Iranian missile that struck near Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistani officials privately worry that any wider regional war involving Iran and U.S. assets in the Strait of Hormuz could overwhelm Pakistan's ability to manage two simultaneous fronts. The latest cross-border strikes were the third such incident in 10 days, according to UN monitors. Analysts at the International Crisis Group said Monday that without a binding ceasefire backed by an enforcement mechanism, "this is a war that is going to keep widening, and Kunar is exactly the kind of place where it widens."