The Taliban’s Defense Ministry claimed on Sunday that 32 Pakistani soldiers were killed in overnight attacks carried out by its forces in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
In a statement, the ministry said its forces launched what it described as “retaliatory operations” under the framework of the 203 Mansouri, 201 Khalid bin Walid and 205 Al-Badr corps in Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces.
The ministry claimed that one tower and four large military posts were seized and that 32 Pakistani soldiers were killed by land mine explosions, with dozens more wounded. It also claimed that two drones were shot down and that a number of military vehicles and other equipment were destroyed.
The statement follows a series of escalating assertions from both sides. On Saturday, Feb. 28, the Taliban’s Defense Ministry claimed that 110 Pakistani soldiers had been killed and 68 wounded in retaliatory operations over two days, and that 27 military posts had been seized.
Pakistani officials have rejected those accounts. Attaullah Tarar, Pakistan’s information minister, claimed that since the start of Islamabad’s military operation, 331 Taliban fighters had been killed and more than 500 wounded. He also claimed that Pakistani forces had destroyed 104 Taliban posts and seized 22 others, without providing specific locations or timelines.
The competing claims come amid continuing clashes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where both sides have reported air and ground operations in recent days.
