Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has claimed that one of Pakistan’s airstrikes last Saturday night in eastern Afghanistan struck a school in Paktika province, wounding a child and damaging parts of the building.
In an interview with Al Arabiya, Mujahid said 22 children were studying at the school when it was hit. He said one child was injured, while the others survived. Two or three rooms and a mosque within the school compound were destroyed, he added.
Local sources in Paktika had earlier told Amu TV that a religious school was struck in the attack, though Taliban officials initially did not report casualties at that location.
In his interview, Mujahid said bombs also landed in two or three other locations, which he described as uninhabited areas where no one was harmed.
“Claims that armed individuals were present in these areas are completely false,” he said. “There were no armed individuals there. Only civilians were wounded and killed, and civilian areas were targeted.”
He reiterated the Taliban’s position that no armed groups affiliated with Pakistan operate inside Afghanistan, calling Pakistani officials’ claims “baseless” and saying the strikes were carried out on the basis of “incorrect” intelligence.
Pakistani officials have said the strikes targeted hideouts of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and Daesh’s regional affiliate, ISIS-K. Islamabad has claimed that nearly 70 militants were killed.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information previously described the operation as “retaliatory,” carried out in response to recent suicide and car bomb attacks on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad, Bajaur and Bannu during Ramadan.
The Taliban have described the airstrikes as an act of aggression against civilians and claimed that more than 20 civilians, including women and children, were killed in strikes in Behsud district of Nangarhar Province.
The UN mission in Afghanistan has confirmed that 13 civilians were killed in Pakistani airstrikes in the eastern province of Nangarhar.
