Pakistan’s military has rejected a new UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report alleging heavy civilian casualties from its cross-border operations, insisting that its actions targeted only the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and that no civilians were harmed.
According to IRAF, Pakistan dismissed UNAMA’s findings as “baseless” after the UN mission reported that hundreds of Afghan civilians had been killed or injured during cross-border airstrikes, artillery attacks and border clashes.
Islamabad said its military operations inside Afghanistan were conducted solely to “neutralize threats posed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan” and rejected claims that civilians had been targeted.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Army spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistani forces carried out a series of what he described as “precise and carefully planned” operations against TTP hideouts, training facilities and infrastructure between October 2025 and the end of June 2026.
He said all those killed in the operations were members of armed groups and maintained that the actions were carried out under Pakistan’s right to self-defense.
Chaudhry also criticized reports issued by UNAMA and Amnesty International, describing them as lacking impartiality. He argued that much of their information had been obtained from sources inside Afghanistan that, according to him, operate under severe restrictions on freedom of expression under Taliban rule.
He further claimed the reports overlooked deadly attacks by armed groups against Pakistani citizens as well as the history of foreign military airstrikes in Afghanistan.
UNAMA, however, presented a sharply different assessment in its latest report.
The UN mission said that at least 499 civilians were killed and 1,216 wounded inside Afghanistan between October 2025 and the end of June 2026 as a result of airstrikes, artillery attacks and border clashes involving Pakistan and the Taliban.
According to the report, a significant number of the casualties were women and children. UNAMA also said that aid workers responding to one attack were struck in a second attack.
One of the deadliest incidents documented in the report occurred on June 28 in Paktia province, where two consecutive strikes on a residential building killed 22 people, including five children, and injured 185 others.
UNAMA described the incident as an example of a “serious disregard for the principles of international humanitarian law” and reiterated that all parties to the conflict are obligated to protect civilians and humanitarian personnel and avoid attacks likely to cause civilian casualties.
Pakistan has long accused the Taliban of providing safe haven to members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, an allegation the Taliban deny. Despite the dispute, Islamabad said its cross-border operations inside Afghanistan would continue “as long as the threats persist.”
