Afghan officials said mortars and missiles fired from Pakistan hit a university and civilian homes in northeastern Afghanistan on Monday, killing seven people and wounding at least 85, in the first major violent incident since Chinese-mediated peace talks between Kabul and Islamabad earlier this month.
Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the attack hit the city of Asadabad and other areas in a second district of Kunar Province on Monday afternoon. Kunar Information and Culture Director Najibullah Hanafi said the death toll stood at seven with 85 people wounded, and he described the attack as including women, children and students at Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani University.
Afghan officials said the university was among the targets. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education said about 30 students and professors were injured in the strike on the university and said the attacks caused extensive damage to the facility’s buildings and grounds. Fitrat also described the strikes as “an unforgivable war crime, barbarity, and provocative act.”
Pakistan rejected Afghanistan’s account and said it did not target the university. In a statement, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said: “Pakistan’s targeting is precise and intelligence based. No strike has been carried out on Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan University. The claims are frivolous and fake.”
The new exchange came after days of diplomacy that aimed to reduce tensions. Afghan and Pakistani officials met in Urumqi in western China in early April, and China’s government said after mediating the talks that the two sides agreed not to escalate their conflict and to “explore a comprehensive solution.” Pakistan and Afghanistan had been locked in months of fighting that has killed hundreds of people since late February, when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.
The renewed fighting also followed a period when hostilities had largely subsided in March after the two sides declared a temporary truce for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Afghan and Pakistani officials later disputed the toll from a March 17 Pakistani airstrike on a drug treatment facility in Kabul that Afghanistan said killed more than 400 civilians; Pakistan denied targeting civilian facilities and disputed the death toll.
Even during the China-mediated talks, sporadic cross-border fighting continued. On Saturday, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqi described the negotiations in China as “positive,” saying during a graduation ceremony at the foreign ministry’s Diplomacy Institute that the Urumqi talks had been positive and that the issues between the two countries are “very sensitive between neighbors and between two Islamic neighboring countries and should not be treated irresponsibly.”
Separately, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan said earlier this month that the conflict had displaced 94,000 people overall.