Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of targeting civilians after 6 killed in airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan on Friday of targeting homes in overnight airstrikes on Kabul and other areas of the country, saying at least six civilians were killed and more than a dozen others were injured.

Pakistan denied targeting civilians, as fighting between the neighbors entered its third week.

Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani aircraft also struck fuel depots belonging to the private airline Kam Air near the airport in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. “This company supplies fuel to civilian airlines as well as to United Nations aircraft,” he said on a post on X.

Pakistan’s military carried out “successful airstrikes inside Afghanistan” as part of the ongoing operation, according to the Information Ministry. It said the strikes targeted four alleged militant hideouts and their support infrastructure in Afghanistan. The ministry said Pakistan did not target any civilian population.

On Friday, a roadside bomb targeting a police vehicle killed six officers in Lakki Marwat, a district in northwest Pakistan, police official Sajjad Khan said. No one claimed responsibility, but suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which often claim such attacks.

The developments come amid a dramatic increase in tensions between the two countries — which Pakistan has referred to as “open war ” — adding to concerns about the stability in the region as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran continues with no end in sight, generating great uncertainty.

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said it responded to Pakistan's attacks by targeting Pakistani military installations in the Kohat district, causing heavy losses.

In a post on X, Khalil Hamraz, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s General Directorate of Intelligence, said two drones were used to strike a military facility near Islamabad. But Pakistani police said two rudimentary drones were spotted in the area and brought down using electronic measures and that the drones caused no damage.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Information also said that the TTP attempted to deploy three rudimentary drones in Kohat, but that Pakistani forces shot them down. Two civilians were injured by falling debris, it said.

Mujahid claimed Pakistani strikes hit multiple civilian sites and uninhabited locations in Afghanistan’s Paktia and Paktika provinces, as well as other areas. He said the attacks “will not go unanswered.”

Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said at least four civilians, including children, were killed in the city and 15 others were injured.

Afghanistan’s Department of Information and Culture in Nangarhar province said a Pakistani mortar shell killed a woman and a child.

The total number of casualties around Afghanistan was unclear.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have been targeting each other’s military installations since late February, when Kabul said it struck Pakistani posts in response to Pakistani attacks along the border. Pakistan’s military has said its operations targeted the TTP and its support networks along the border.

The ongoing dispute is rooted in Pakistan’s belief that Afghanistan’s Taliban government is harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival, India. The Taliban denies harboring militant groups.

Both sides claim to have inflicted heavy losses in what has become the deadliest fighting in years.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Friday said the military has killed 663 Afghan Taliban since the fighting began. There was no immediate comment from Kabul.

On Thursday, China’s special envoy Yue Xiaoyong arrived in Islamabad for talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Sadiq, following a visit to Kabul.

Sadiq, Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said he and Yue “discussed threats posed by terrorist groups” and agreed on the need for collective efforts to ensure lasting peace and stability.

Repeated international community calls for restraint have had little effect. Pakistan has previously said its strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan are aimed solely at Khawarij, a phrase Islamabad uses for the TTP.

Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, the TTP has intensified attacks inside Pakistan and along the border. Islamabad says its military operations will continue until Kabul takes verifiable steps to curb the TTP and other militants operating from its territory.

A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting in October, but several rounds of peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting agreement.

Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.

Taliban police guard the area where a strike hit a house in the Momand Dara district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Hedayat Shah)

The body of a person killed in a strike that hit a house is carried on a bed frame in the Momand Dara district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Hedayat Shah)

A man mourns next to the body of a child killed in a strike that hit a house in the Momand Dara district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Hedayat Shah)

Residents inspect the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)

Residents inspect the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)

Residents and Taliban police gather the remains of a projectile at the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)

Residents inspect the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Barackatullah Popal)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anti-Muslim rhetoric from some Republicans in Congress intensified this week against the backdrop of the Iran war, with multiple lawmakers — including one who said “Muslims don’t belong in American society” — drawing condemnation from Democrats for their remarks but little pushback from GOP leaders.

The derogatory language has been percolating among Republican officials for months, often prominent when criticizing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim. But against the backdrop of the Iran war, a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population, and attacks at a synagogue in Michigan and a college in Virginia, the tone sharpened this week.

“The enemy is inside our gates,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville wrote Thursday in response to a photo of Mamdani sitting on the ground during an iftar dinner at New York City Hall. The photo was juxtaposed with a picture of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hours later, Tuberville doubled down: “To be clear, I didn’t ‘suggest’ Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly.”

The rhetoric intensified Friday as GOP lawmakers responded to the attacks in Michigan and Virginia by urging a halt to all immigration into the United States. Some singled out Muslims specifically.

For many Muslims, it's a political moment that carries echoes from the early 2000s, when the 9/11 attacks and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars generated hostility toward Muslim communities in the United States, often accompanied by discrimination and racist violence.

“When members of Congress speak, it’s not just words,” said Iman Awad, the national director for policy and advocacy for the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action. “It shapes public perception. It legitimizes prejudice.”

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles in his social media post stated flatly that Muslims don't belong in the United States. He stood behind it after criticism mounted, later writing that “paperwork doesn’t magically make you American” and that “Muslims are unable to assimilate; they all have to go back.”

Asked about Ogles’ post on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he had spoken to members “about our tone and our message and what we say.” He said Ogles used “different language than I would use,” but added that he believes the issue raised by the comments is “serious.”

“There’s a lot of energy in the country, and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem," Johnson said. "That’s what animates this.”

Sharia is a religious framework that guides many Muslims’ moral and spiritual conduct. References to “Sharia law” have often been invoked by officials to suggest Muslims are attempting to impose religious practices on communities in the United States.

Many Republicans point to a Muslim-centered planned community near Dallas as proof of “Sharia law” — though the developers have denied the allegations and said they are being targeted because they are Muslim.

With Johnson not condemning Ogles’ remarks — or to recent comments from Florida Rep. Randy Fine that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one” — the anti-Muslim rhetoric grew louder. After the photo circulated of Mamdani at the iftar dinner, several Republicans responded with critical posts.

Democrats broadly condemned the GOP messages. Chuck Schumer, the leader of Senate Democrats, called Tuberville's post “mindless hate.”

“Islamophobic hate like this is fundamentally un-American and we must confront and overcome it whenever it rears its ugly head,” Schumer said.

Mamdani — in response to Tuberville's post that “the enemy is inside our gates" — said: "Let there be as much outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as there is when I break bread with New Yorkers.”

Federal officials identified a man who rammed his vehicle into a hallway at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, this week as a naturalized citizen born in Lebanon. Officials have said that the man had lost four family members in an Israeli airstrike in his native Lebanon last week, just after sunset as they were having their fast-breaking meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan

In Virginia, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University before ROTC students subdued and killed him. Court documents showed that he had previously served time for attempting to aid the Islamic State and was released less than two years ago.

Some Republican lawmakers claimed vindication for their views. Others pushed for legislation. Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, the House GOP’s whip, said “the security of our nation hinges on our ability to denaturalize and deport terrorists.”

West Virginia Rep. Riley Moore said he would introduce a bill to denaturalize and deport any naturalized citizen who “commits an act of terrorism, plots to commit an act of terrorism, joins a terrorist organization or otherwise aids and abets terrorism against the American people.”

Similar rhetoric and policy pushes have surfaced before and drawn controversy. Last year, protesters connected to demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas war were arrested and targeted by authorities, including former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist the government has sought to detain and deport.

Middle East conflicts bringing domestic tensions is nothing new. With the war in Gaza, both Muslim and Jewish communities have faced faith-based discrimination and attacks.

Mamdani said the posts invoking the 9/11 attacks are problematic not just because of the words, but because of "the actions that often accompany them.”

“I think too of the smaller indignities, the indignities that many New Yorkers face, but that Muslims are expected to face in silence,” Mamdani said. “Of the exhaustion of having to explain yourself to those who are not interested in understanding. Of the men who introduce themselves by their given name only to be called Muhammad for years on end.”

The stark silence from Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, reflects a broader change in the party. After the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Republican President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., to explicitly warn against Muslim discrimination.

“America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country,” Bush said during the visit, adding: “They need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”

“Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior,” Bush said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Rental Ripoff Hearing at Fordham University on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Police tape hangs outside the Temple Israel synagogue Friday, March 13, 2026, in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

FILE - Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., arrives for a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., at the Capitol in Washington, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - The U.S. Capitol is seen at sunrise March 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)