Pakistan air strikes target Taliban rebel camps in Afghanistan after 7 killed in terrorist attack

Pakistani warplanes have conducted air strikes against camps of Taliban rebels based in southeast Afghanistan, following a deadly terrorist attack that killed an army colonel.

Pakistan Air Force jets bombed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) targets in the border Khost and Paktika provinces at around 3am local time this morning, spokesmen for the TTP and Afghanistan’s Taliban regime said.

The air strikes followed the deaths of seven Pakistani soldiers, including a colonel and captain, in a TTP attack on a military post in North Waziristan tribal district on Saturday.

After attending the funerals of the two army officers on Saturday, President Asif Ali Zardari warned that Pakistan would avenge their deaths.

Islamabad has not yet commented on today’s air strikes, but spokesmen of the TTP and Afghan interim government said the attacks hit targets in camps occupied by hundreds of Pakistani insurgents and their families.

One of the Pakistani air strikes destroyed the home of a ranking TTP commander, Abdullah Shah, in Paktika’s Bermal district.

Seven members of his family were reportedly killed, but the TTP said Shah was in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal district at the time.

Another person was killed in Sepera district of Khost.

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Afghan interim government, condemned the Pakistani attacks as a “reckless action and violation of Afghanistan’s territory”.

He warned that the air strikes could “lead to consequences which are beyond Pakistan’s control”.

Following the air strikes, Taliban forces opened fire on Pakistani soldiers manning border posts, leading to intermittent skirmishes.

Pakistan responded similarly to an unprecedented Iranian cross-border attack in January, when both countries conducted air