ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AFP): Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan including the capital Kabul on Friday, with Islamabad's defence minister declaring the neighbours at "open war" following months of tit-for-tat clashes.
AFP reporters in Kabul and Kandahar heard blasts and jets overhead until dawn, and the Taliban government said Pakistani surveillance aircraft were flying over Afghanistan on Friday afternoon.
The overnight operation was Pakistan's most widespread bombardment of the Afghan capital and its first air strikes on the southern power base of the Taliban authorities since they returned to power in 2021.
Near the key Torkham border crossing, an AFP journalist heard shelling on Friday morning, and a camp accommodating Afghans who had returned from Pakistan was hit by the fighting overnight.
"Children, women, and old people were running," Gander Khan, a 65-year-old returnee, told AFP in front of rows of tents at the Omari camp.
Pakistan's latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in retaliation for earlier air strikes by Islamabad.
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.
Both the Afghan and Pakistani militaries said they killed dozens of soldiers in the latest violence.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.
Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has stepped up assaults in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
Pakistan's defence minister Khawaja Asif declared an "all-out confrontation" with the Taliban government, posting on X: "Now it is open war between us and you."
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government's spokesman, later said in Kandahar it wanted "dialogue" to resolve the conflict.
"We have repeatedly emphasised a peaceful solution, and still want the problem to be resolved through dialogue," Mujahid told a news conference, adding: "Right now, Pakistani planes, reconnaissance aircraft, are flying over Afghanistan's airspace."
- Delicate ceasefire broken -
The overnight strikes mark a "significant and dangerous escalation from earlier clashes", South Asia expert Michael Kugelman said on X.
"Pakistan appears to have expanded its targeting beyond TTP to the Taliban regime itself," he said.
Several rounds of negotiations between Islamabad and Kabul followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but the efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement.
After repeated breaches of the initial truce, Saudi Arabia intervened this month, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.
Iran, which shares an eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, offered on Friday to help "facilitate dialogue", while the Saudi foreign minister spoke with his Pakistani counterpart and China said it was "working with" both countries while calling for calm.
- Jets overhead -
In the Afghan capital, AFP journalists heard jets and multiple loud blasts, followed by gunfire over a period of several hours.
An AFP reporter in Kandahar, where Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based, said he also heard jets overhead.
Streets in Kabul were quiet after daybreak, in keeping with a Friday during Ramadan in the Muslim-majority nation.
The Taliban government confirmed the Pakistani air strikes, with spokesman Mujahid saying there were no casualties.
Hours earlier, Mujahid announced "large-scale offensive operations" at the border "in response to repeated violations by the Pakistani military".
The Afghan defence ministry reported eight of its soldiers had been killed in the land offensive.
At the camp for returnees near Torkham, multiple civilians were wounded in a Pakistan strike, an Afghan official reported.
"A mortar shell has hit the camp and unfortunately seven of our refugees have been wounded," said Qureshi Badlun, the information chief in Nangarhar province.
- Months of border violence -
Mujahid told AFP that several Pakistani soldiers had been "caught alive", a claim denied by the prime minister's office in Islamabad.
The military operation follows recent Pakistan strikes on Nangarhar and Paktika provinces, which the UN mission in Afghanistan said killed at least 13 civilians.
Both sides also reported cross-border fire on Tuesday, but without casualties.
Besides military operations, there has been a series of deadly suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months.
They included an attack on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that killed at least 40 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group.
The militant group's regional chapter, Islamic State-Khorasan, also claimed a deadly suicide bombing at a restaurant in Kabul last month.
Friday's air strikes almost immediately sparked misinformation online, with a video of a large explosion racking up more than one million views within hours.
AFP fact-checkers found the footage -- shared in English, Indonesian, Greek, Turkish and Arabic-language social media posts -- was taken during the start of the Iraq War in 2003. -- AFP
