By The South Asia Times

ISLAMABAD -  Pakistan has summoned the Afghan Taliban administration's chargé d'affaires and lodged a strong diplomatic protest following the deadly attack on a Pakistan Rangers camp in Karachi, saying Afghan nationals were involved in the assault and accusing militants of continuing to use Afghan territory to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said that the Afghan chargé d'affaires was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Monday night, where officials delivered a formal demarche over the Karachi attack. Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani, also conveyed the same protest to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry in Kabul.

"The demarches were issued in light of the fact that Afghan nationals, including one apprehended alive, participated in this attack, proving yet again that Afghan soil and Afghan nationals continue to be used to orchestrate terrorist attacks inside Pakistan," the spokesperson said.

The statement came a day after militants attacked a Pakistan Rangers camp in Karachi. Pakistani security officials said one suspected Afghan national was captured alive in an injured condition during the operation, while investigations into the attack are continuing.

The diplomatic protest follows a sharp escalation in tensions between the neighboring countries. On Sunday night, Pakistan's military said it carried out intelligence-based airstrikes against what it described as terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan's eastern provinces of Khost, Paktika and Nangarhar. Pakistani authorities said the strikes targeted militant infrastructure linked to groups responsible for recent attacks inside Pakistan.

The Afghan Taliban administration has not accepted Pakistan's longstanding allegations that militants operate from Afghan territory with its support, maintaining that it does not allow Afghan soil to be used against any other country.

Pakistan has repeatedly urged the Taliban government to take action against militant groups that Islamabad says have found sanctuary across the border.

Militant violence has surged in Pakistan, particularly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern province of Balochistan, since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Pakistan has consistently accused the Afghan Taliban of allowing the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied groups to operate from safe havens inside Afghanistan, allegations that Kabul has repeatedly denied.

The latest diplomatic exchange underscores the growing strain in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations as Islamabad intensifies both military and diplomatic pressure following a series of deadly cross-border militant attacks.