Pakistani fighter jets and unmanned combat aerial vehicles struck sites in Afghanistan's Kunar and Paktika provinces in the predawn hours of Monday, September 21, 2026, according to Afghan officials and Tolo News. The strikes, reported between roughly 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. local time, reportedly end nearly three months of relative calm along the Durand Line, the contested frontier separating the two countries.
In Kunar's Nurgal district, Najibullah Hanif, head of the province's Information and Culture Directorate, confirmed at least three people killed and several injured when low-flying jets destroyed a building identified by Afghan sources as the home of a civilian, Noor Mohammad. In Paktika's Barmal district, local officials confirmed two separate strikes, one on an empty house, another on a former shop, with no casualties reported as of mid-morning. Pakistan's military and government have issued no official statement confirming or denying the operation.
What is confirmed and what is claimed
The strikes arrive 48 to 72 hours after a vehicle-borne bomb hit a mosque near the Old Police Lines in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Friday, September 18, killing at least 16 people, including five police officers, according to Pakistani authorities, who blamed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied groups. Anonymous Pakistani security sources describe Monday's raids as "precision strikes" against TTP and Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) hideouts, a characterization that remains unconfirmed by any named official. Reports of heavy gunfire between Taliban forces and Pakistani troops near Paktia and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa emerged later Monday morning, suggesting the strikes may have triggered ground-level exchanges, though this too remains unverified.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Al Arabiya English on Saturday, before Monday's strikes, that "if Pakistan invokes Article 51 to violate the sanctity of Afghan territory, Afghanistan has the right to defend its country, and we will do so," warning of a "crushing response." Afghanistan denies harboring TTP fighters, a denial Pakistan rejects.
Observers are reading: why Pakistan's silence and the Article 51 warning may signal a shift in how this conflict escalates next.
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A lull, not a resolution
The three-month pause that ended Monday was punctuated only by Afghan drone launches in July, which Islamabad said it intercepted. With casualty figures from Kunar still confirmed only by a single named Afghan official, and Paktika's toll still developing, the structural dispute between Islamabad and Kabul remains largely where it stood in June: unresolved, and now armed with new grievance on both sides.
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