Pakistan bombs Afghan cities as border clashes escalate

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KABUL/ISLAMABAD — Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul and two other provinces on Friday, hours after a cross-border attack in the latest escalation of violence between the two neighbors.

Following months of tit-for-tat clashes, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in what the Taliban government said was retaliation for earlier deadly air strikes.

Hours later, at least three explosions were heard in Kabul on Friday morning, but there was no immediate information on the exact location of the strikes in the Afghan capital, or of any potential casualties.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday his country’s armed forces could “crush” aggressors, following air strikes on neighboring Afghanistan.

“Our forces have the full capability to crush any aggressive ambitions,” Sharif said, according to the Pakistani government’s X page. “The entire nation stands shoulder to shoulder with the Pakistan armed forces,” he said.

Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides to protect civilians as required under international law and “to continue to seek to resolve any differences through diplomacy,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Afghanistan’s government spokesperson earlier confirmed that Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early in the day.

Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistan also carried out airstrikes in Kandahar to the south and in the southeastern province of Paktia.

Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, in a post on X just after the strikes, declared “open war” on the Taliban government. “Our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you,” he wrote.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the strikes on Afghanistan were a “befitting response,” as blasts and gunfire rang out in the cities of Kabul and Kandahar.

“Pakistan’s armed forces have given a befitting response to the Afghan Taliban’s open aggression,” said Naqvi.

Two senior Pakistani security officials told The Associated Press that Pakistan’s military carried out airstrikes targeting what they described as military facilities in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia provinces, allegedly destroying two brigade bases, but they didn’t mention any potential casualties.

Afghanistan said its military launched its attack across the border into Pakistan late Thursday in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday, and claimed to have captured more than a dozen Pakistani army posts.

Pakistan’s government, which had described last Sunday’s airstrikes as an attack on militants harbored in the area, described Thursday’s Afghan attack as unprovoked, and dismissed claims that army posts had been captured.

“In response to the repeated rebellions and insurrections of the Pakistani military, large-scale offensive operations were launched against Pakistani military bases and military installations along the Durand Line,” Mujahid said in a post on X Thursday night.

Related Article

India’s top court bans textbook with section on ‘corruption in judiciary’

Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said the retaliatory attacks occurred along the border in six provinces.

The 2,611-km long border between the two countries is known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognized.

Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry said 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, including some whose bodies had been taken into Afghanistan, while “several others were captured alive.” It put its own casualties at eight killed and another 11 wounded. The ministry said it had destroyed 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases, and that the fighting had ended at midnight, about four hours after the start of the attack.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, however, said the number of Pakistani soldiers killed stood at two, with three others wounded. He said 36 Afghan fighters had been reported killed. In a post on X, he said Pakistan was giving a “strong and effective response” to what he called unprovoked firing from Afghanistan.

Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured.

Later, in a post on X, he added that at least 133 Afghan fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded, saying that 27 Afghani posts were also destroyed and nine fighters were captured. He didn’t specify where the victims died, and just added that there would be “many more casualties estimated in strikes in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar military targets.”

Both sides also reported exchanges of fire in the Torkham border area.

Afghan authorities were evacuating a refugee camp near the Torkham border crossing after several refugees were wounded, said Qureshi Badlon, head of Torkham’s Information and Public Awareness Board. The Defense Ministry said 13 civilians were wounded in a missile strike on the camp, including women and children.

On the Pakistani side of the border, police said residents were also evacuating to safer areas, while some Afghan refugees who had been waiting to cross back into Afghanistan were also moved to secure locations. Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown on migrants in October 2023 and has expelled hundreds of thousands of people.

Pakistani police said mortars fired from Afghanistan had landed in nearby villages, but there were no reports of civilian casualties.

Afghanistan’s military released video footage of military vehicles moving at night, and the sound of heavy gunfire. The video could not be independently verified.

Tension has been high between the two neighbors for months, with deadly border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad, at the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.

A Qatari-mediated ceasefire between the two countries has largely held, but the two sides have still occasionally traded fire across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in November failed to produce a formal agreement.

Militant violence has surged in Pakistan in recent years, much of which Pakistan blames on the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, and outlawed Baloch separatist groups. The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Islamabad accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge both the group and Kabul deny. — Agencies