Pakistan carried out cross-border airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan overnight after a deadly militant attack killed three Pakistani security personnel, escalating tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban government as each side offered sharply different accounts of the operation. Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the military first conducted an “intelligence-based ground operation” before launching airstrikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border targeting terrorist hideouts. The operation followed Saturday’s attack on the Pakistan Rangers’ regional headquarters in Karachi, where militants killed three security personnel. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, later claimed responsibility for the Karachi attack. Pakistani authorities said security forces killed three attackers and arrested another suspect, whom the military identified as an Afghan national. Tarar said Sunday’s operation targeted hideouts and safe havens used by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Fitna al-Khawarij, the term Pakistan uses for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Pakistani authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban and allied groups for much of the recent violence targeting police and security forces. The TTP is separate from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, although the two are allies. The Taliban government disputed Pakistan’s account of the strikes, accusing Pakistan of hitting civilian homes rather than militant positions. Afghan officials claimed the strikes hit three eastern provinces and killed 36 civilians while wounding 163 others. Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani forces struck a home in Paktia province, killing an older man and a child. He said the area was struck again, killing 28 villagers and wounding 158 others. Fitrat also said six people, most of them women and children, were killed when a home was hit in Paktika province, while a strike in Kunar province reportedly killed livestock but caused no human casualties. Another Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, condemned the operation as a “cowardly act of aggression.” Pakistan defended the strikes as part of its campaign against militant groups responsible for attacks inside the country. “Pakistan has always strived for maintaining peace and stability in the region, but at the same time shall not compromise on the safety and security of our citizens, which remains our top priority,” Tarar said. The latest strikes highlight another escalation in a relationship that has steadily deteriorated since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Kabul of allowing militant groups to operate from Afghan territory, an allegation Afghan authorities have consistently denied. Although the two countries agreed to a ceasefire in March after weeks of fighting, cross-border violence has continued. Afghan officials said Pakistani strikes earlier in June killed 13 people, while prior Pakistani operations have also drawn accusations of heavy civilian casualties. The conflict has included fighting along the frontier and Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan cities, including Kabul and Kandahar, where the Taliban’s supreme leader is based. Mediation efforts by countries including China and Saudi Arabia have so far failed to produce a lasting resolution, and the frontier has remained largely closed since cross-border violence in October. In March, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, said peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan could only prevail if the Taliban regime “renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organizations.”