By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Pakistan said Wednesday it carried out air strikes inside Afghanistan's southeastern Khost province, retaliation, Islamabad says, for drone attacks launched from Afghan territory. The governor's office in Khost said the strikes caused no casualties, according to Al Jazeera.
Details remain thin on both the scale of the strikes and the drone attacks that preceded them. Neither government has offered a full public accounting of targets hit or casualties on either side of the border, and Al Jazeera's report notes the claims of "no casualties" come from the Afghan governor's office rather than independent verification.
The exchange adds to a run of friction between Islamabad and the Taliban government in Kabul, whose relationship has curdled since the Taliban's return to power, with Pakistan repeatedly accusing Afghan-based militants of launching cross-border attacks and Kabul rejecting responsibility.
What happens next is the open question. Air strikes across that particular border have a way of not staying contained to a single night, and with drone technology now cheap enough for both state and non-state actors to field, the incentive for retaliation-by-air rather than costlier ground operations is only growing. Readers should expect this story to develop with more claims than confirmations for some time yet.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE -
— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera.
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