ALBAWABA- At least 23 civilians, among them seven women and four children, were killed in an overnight airstrike on Pakistan’s northwestern border region of Tirah, police and security sources confirmed Monday.
The strike hit four homes that were “completely destroyed,” a senior police officer told AFP, without clarifying who carried out the assault.
Opposition lawmakers, however, directly accused the Pakistani military of launching the raid as part of an intensified counter-terrorism campaign against militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
Iqbal Afridi, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, said, “It was the security force’s aircraft that carried out the shelling. It’s their shelling that killed 23 people.”
Another provincial legislator, Sohail Khan Afridi, also held the military responsible during a session of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly.
The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) has escalated attacks on security forces in the mountainous border areas in recent months, with Tirah emerging as a hotspot of militant activity.
Neither the government nor the armed forces have issued an official statement on the incident.
