The strikes took place during the intervening night of Thursday, February 26, and Friday, February 27, targeting multiple Afghan cities including Kabul and Kandahar.
What is Operation Ghazab Lil Haq?Operation Ghazab Lil Haq — which roughly translates to “Wrath for the Truth” or “Wrath for the Sake of Truth” — is the name given by Pakistan to its coordinated air and ground offensive against Taliban positions inside Afghanistan.
The operation was launched on February 26 and involves fighter jets, artillery and ground forces striking military installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Paktika, as per News18.
Pakistani authorities claim that brigade and battalion headquarters, ammunition depots, tanks and artillery pieces were destroyed.
Read more: Pakistan declares ‘open war’ with Afghanistan’s Taliban; bombs Kabul, Kandahar
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said that 27 Taliban posts were destroyed and nine captured, as per a report by Pakistani daily The Dawn. He claimed that at least 133 Afghan Taliban and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters were killed and more than 200 injured. However, Afghan officials have rejected these figures.
Islamabad has framed the campaign as an “immediate and effective response” to what it called unprovoked aggression from across the border.A mortar shell reportedly struck a refugee camp near Torkham, injuring seven people, an Afghan official told news agency AFP. Clashes have been reported across provinces on both sides of the frontier, including Paktika, Khost and Nangarhar in Afghanistan, and Khyber, Bajaur and Waziristan in Pakistan.
What is the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict about?
The Durand Line — a long-contested colonial-era boundary — remains at the heart of the dispute, with both countries trading accusations over cross-border militancy and sovereignty violations.
Pakistan maintains that Afghan Taliban forces initiated “unprovoked firing” across several sectors of the Durand Line, resulting in casualties among Pakistani security personnel.
Islamabad says the strikes were a retaliatory measure to defend its territorial integrity.
Read more: Afghanistan Pakistan Conflict Live Updates
Afghanistan had earlier claimed that its forces killed 55 Pakistani soldiers and captured 19 military outposts, including a headquarters at Anzar Sar in Khost province, as per The Dawn.
Taliban authorities also reportedly said that 23 bodies of Pakistani soldiers were in their custody.
Pakistan has strongly denied these assertions. Attaullah Tarar said two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three wounded, while 36 Afghan fighters died in the exchanges, describing Kabul’s claims as exaggerated.
