How ragtag Taliban Air Force is raining fire near Islamabad, Rawalpindi

The Taliban-led Afghan military, dismissed as fragmented and under-equipped, has claimed it carried out air and drone strikes on multiple Pakistani military targets, including sites near Islamabad. This is how the ragtag military rained fire and retaliated to Pakistani strikes from the sky.

The Taliban administration of Afghanistan has claimed that its Air Force, which is under-resourced, carried out retaliatory air and drone strikes on multiple Pakistani military targets, including sites it says are near the capital Islamabad and military headquarters Rawalpindi.

In a statement beginning with a religious invocation, Afghanistan's Ministry of National Defence said its Air Force struck "a military camp near Faisalabad in Islamabad, the Army cantonment in Nowshera, the military township of Jamrud, and also in Abbottabad".

The Kabul-based Tolo News reported that a drone targeted a military camp in the Nosher area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It also reported, citing sources, that Kabul's "defence forces targeted key centres of Pakistan’s military regime last night using unmanned aerial vehicles".

Pakistan has not officially confirmed any such aerial bombardment in its territory, though it has acknowledged the cross-border exchanges of fire along the disputed Durand Line, declaring an all-out "war".

The Taliban described the strikes as retaliation for Pakistani air "incursions" in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia that Afghan officials say killed dozens of civilians in the eastern provinces. While Kabul insists the operation was "conducted successfully", independent verification of the scale, targets and impact of the Afghan aerial action remains limited.

However, that the Taliban could strike deep inside Pakistan is no less surprising. Faizabad, near Islamabad and one of the target sites, lies roughly 200 kilometres from Landi Kotal near the Durand Line.