Five Afghan children die in Pakistan rocket attacks: Officials

KABUL: At least five children and a woman were killed in an eastern Afghan province when the Pakistani military allegedly fired rockets along the border in a pre-dawn assault on Saturday, officials said.

Since the Taliban seized power last year in Afghanistan, border tensions between the neighbours have risen, with Pakistan claiming militant groups were carrying out attacks from Afghan soil.

The Taliban deny harbouring Pakistani militants, but are also infuriated by a fence Islamabad is erecting along their 2,700-kilometre border known as the Durand line, which was drawn up in colonial times.

An Afghan government official and a resident in the eastern Kunar province said Pakistani forces fired rockets early on Saturday that left six people dead.

“Five children and a woman were killed and a man wounded in Pakistani rocket attacks in Shelton district of Kunar,” provincial director of information Najibullah Hassan Abdaal said.

Ehsanullah, a resident of Shelton district who goes by one name as many Afghans do, said the assault was carried out by Pakistani military aircraft.

A similar pre-dawn assault was carried out in Afghanistan’s Khost province near the border, another Afghan government official said.

“Pakistani helicopters bombarded four villages near the Durand line in Khost province,” he said on condition of anonymity.

“Only civilian houses were targeted and there were casualties,” he added, but did not offer more details.

An Afghan tribal elder from Khost, Gul Markhan, confirmed the incident in Khost.

TOLO News, Afghanistan’s leading private TV channel, showed footage of houses destroyed in the assault.

“All the targeted people were innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the Taliban or the government,” Rasool Jan, a resident of Khost, told the channel.

“We don’t know who is our enemy and why we were targeted.”

Pakistani military officials were not immediately available for comment, and Taliban government spokesmen in Kabul declined to comment when contacted. – AFP.