The United States should deploy its diplomatic leverage over Pakistan to secure accountability for cross-border airstrikes in Afghanistan that have killed civilians, including children, according to a report published by US-based online magazine Responsible Statecraft. The call comes after Pakistan carried out fresh strikes in Afghanistan last week, ending a month of relative calm.

What the Airstrikes Killed

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the strikes killed at least 13 civilians and injured 10 others. Islamabad confirmed the strikes, asserting they targeted militant hideouts and killed 26 fighters linked to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — claims that have not been independently verified.

Haji Hafizullah, a resident of Khost province, described spending the night after the strikes pulling bodies from rubble alongside his son and fellow villagers. 'One of the families lost seven children. They were between three and 15 years old. A woman and a man from the same family were also killed. They were all sleeping. They had no link to any group. They were not fighters. They were poor people, simple people,' he said.

Pattern of Strikes With No Accountability

The Responsible Statecraft report stressed this is not an isolated incident. In March, Pakistani strikes hit the Omid drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul, where, according to the United Nations, at least 143 people were killed. Despite the scale of that attack, it drew little condemnation or sustained attention from the international community, including the United States.

The report noted that Washington has developed closer ties with Pakistan during President Donald Trump's second term, which critics argue has reduced pressure on Islamabad to justify its cross-border military actions.

Residents Demand the World Bear Witness

Esmatullah, another Khost resident, challenged Pakistan's stated rationale directly. 'Pakistan says it is fighting terrorists; then why did we bury children today? If these children were terrorists, show us their guns. Show us their crime. Their only crime was that they were Afghan, poor, and sleeping near a border Pakistan thinks it can bomb whenever it wants,' he said.

He also appealed to the global community to stop treating Afghan deaths as 'background noise': 'We are not asking the world to fight for us; we are asking the world to say the truth. A child and a mother killed in Khost or Paktika is still a child and a mother. If there are truly human rights and if they really mean something, they must mean something for Afghan people too.'

What the Report Recommends

The Responsible Statecraft report outlined three specific demands for Washington: press Islamabad to provide verifiable evidence supporting its claims of targeting militant hideouts; support an independent investigation into the reported civilian deaths; and make unambiguous that counterterrorism cooperation cannot serve as a pretext for strikes that kill Afghan civilians in Khost, Kunar, or Paktika provinces.

The report concluded that Pakistan's frustration with the Taliban or the TTP does not entitle it to target villagers, and that counterterrorism operations cannot become a 'licence to kill poor families.' With US-Pakistan ties deepening, the pressure on Washington to take a public stance is only likely to grow.