Pakistan’s military has rejected United Nations findings that documented 499 civilians killed and 1,216 wounded in Afghanistan during fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan from October 2025 through June 2026. Military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry called the findings baseless and said Pakistani operations had targeted militants and their infrastructure, not civilians.
The dispute is not only about two casualty numbers. It concerns how targets are selected, how civilian harm is verified in territory controlled by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities, and what evidence a state should make public after conducting strikes across a border.
Pakistan frames the strikes as self-defense
Chaudhry said Pakistan acted to protect its population from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a militant organization that is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan accuses the Taliban government in Kabul of allowing the TTP and other groups to use Afghan territory for attacks. Afghanistan denies providing such sanctuary.
At a televised briefing covered by the Associated Press, Chaudhry said those killed in Pakistani strikes were militants. He also questioned whether UN and human-rights investigators could obtain reliable accounts under Taliban restrictions on speech.
That position reflects Pakistan’s domestic security narrative. Authorities say Afghan-based groups have carried out repeated attacks against Pakistani civilians and security personnel. In a July 23 briefing, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said its strikes were undertaken as a last resort in self-defense and directed exclusively at terrorists and their logistical bases.
The Foreign Ministry rejected allegations by Amnesty International as unsupported. It also said the Taliban government maintains a permissive environment for the TTP, the Balochistan Liberation Army and affiliated groups.
UN monitoring records a large civilian toll
UNAMA, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, says its human-rights staff gather and verify reports of harm inside Afghanistan. Its July 28 reporting hub publishes separate quarterly updates on the overall human-rights situation and cross-border civilian casualties in English, Dari and Pashto.
The consolidated toll of 499 killed and 1,216 wounded covers casualties in Afghanistan during months of cross-border hostilities. It should not be read as a complete count for both countries, because UNAMA’s mandate is limited to Afghanistan. It also does not make every death the result of the same weapon or incident.
One documented pattern is the danger to people who respond after an initial strike. Associated Press reporting on the UN findings described a June 28 attack on a residential building in Paktia in which most casualties occurred during a second strike as local people tried to rescue victims of the first. A UNAMA statement on June 29 verified at least 28 civilians killed and 49 injured in strikes across Paktya, Paktika and Kunar.
Pakistan says it uses intelligence and precision to avoid civilian harm. The UN figures and specific incident accounts create a factual challenge to that claim, but resolving it requires access to strike locations, witness accounts, medical records and the targeting information held by the military.
The Kabul treatment-center strike sharpens the dispute
The most serious contested incident is the March 16 strike on the Omid drug rehabilitation and treatment center in Kabul. UNAMA independently verified at least 269 civilian deaths and 122 injuries there, while Afghan authorities reported a higher toll. Pakistan maintains that the target was being used for weapons and militant support.
On July 21, Amnesty International published an investigation based on interviews, more than 60 photos and videos, and more than 30 satellite images. It said it found no evidence supporting Pakistan’s public claim that the center was storing weapons and called for an independent investigation into a possible war crime.
Pakistan rejected Amnesty’s conclusions and described the operation as lawful self-defense. The two sides therefore disagree not only over interpretation, but over what the available imagery and testimony establish. News coverage should preserve that distinction unless Pakistan releases additional evidence or an independent inquiry reaches findings.
The Afghan political response also contains its own divergence. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told Afghanistan International that Pakistan should address its domestic security problems and denied that Afghan territory would be allowed for attacks on other states. Afghan critics of the Taliban, however, have also argued that the authorities’ regional relationships helped create the present security crisis.
What to watch
The most immediate milestone is whether Pakistan publishes targeting evidence or announces a review of any of the incidents identified by UNAMA and Amnesty. A transparent response would need to address specific locations and casualty claims, rather than only repeating the broader position that all targets were militant facilities.
Watch also for UNAMA’s next cross-border casualty update after the quarter ending September 30. Any renewed border fighting, ceasefire arrangement or mechanism allowing independent access to strike sites will affect both the casualty record and the ability to resolve competing claims.
Sources
- Associated Press, international: Pakistan military response and UNAMA’s consolidated casualty figures.
- UNAMA, Afghanistan: July 28 human-rights and cross-border casualty reports, English, Dari and Pashto.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan: official self-defense argument and rejection of Amnesty’s findings.
- Amnesty International, international: open-source investigation of the Omid center strike.
- Afghanistan International, Afghanistan: Taliban response to Pakistan’s sanctuary allegations.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. English-, Dari-, Pashto- and Urdu-language sources or official material were checked where accessible.