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Afghanistan says cross-border attacks by Pakistan hit civilian areas and killed 3

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan accused Pakistan of carrying out cross-border attacks into its territory on Monday that hit civilian areas, killing at least three people and wounding 14, as tension between the two neighbors remain high despite recent peace talks.

Afghan deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said on X that the attacks also destroyed two schools, two mosques and a health center in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar.

Pakistan’s Information Ministry rejected the allegation in a post on X, saying that Fitrat’s accusations follow recent cross-border firing from Afghan territory into Pakistan. Those attacks, in Mrch and April, killed nine women and children in Bajaur, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

It said Bajaur attacks “exposed the Afghan regime’s reckless and shameful actions.” The ministry also argued that images circulated with the latest Afghan claim show damage “inconsistent with artillery impact,” citing intact roofs and localized breakage as indicators of possible staged destruction.

Pakistan and Afghanistan had been embroiled in months of deadly fighting that killed hundreds of people since late February, when Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants that carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban, which has ruled Afghanistan since it seized power in the country in 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.

In early April, Afghan and Pakistani officials met for Chinese-mediated peace talks in western China. The two sides agreed not to escalate the conflict and “explore a comprehensive solution,” Beijing said at the time. But some cross-border clashes have continued, although at a lower intensity than before the talks.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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