Pakistani airstrike in Afghanistan kill 22 TTP militants

Pakistan on Thursday said it killed at least 22 terrorists in airstrikes in Afghanistan as part of a campaign to eliminate militants’ hideouts across the border.

Afghanistan’s Taliban Government, meanwhile, said that Pakistani strikes killed nine Afghan civilians, including women and children, and injured 11 others.This comes amid a sharp escalation in already strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the two sides trading allegations over militant sanctuaries, cross-border attacks, airstrikes and border incursions.Pakistan’s information ministry, in a statement, said that the country’s security forces conducted “well-planned and calibrated aerial strikes” against the hideouts and safe havens of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), killing multiple terrorists. It said that “selective targeting” of terrorist camps and hideouts at two locations in Afghanistan was carried out based on credible intelligence with “precision and accuracy”.

“Targets were destroyed with precision and initial reports suggest killing of twenty-two terrorists,” it said.