THE country bombed major cities in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, 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 yesterday.
The operation was Pakistan’s most widespread bombardment of the Afghan capital and its first airstrikes on the southern power base of the Taliban authorities since they returned to power in 2021.
Near the key Torkham border crossing between the two countries, a journalist heard shelling yesterday morning, and a camp accommodating Afghans returning from Pakistan was hit by the fighting overnight.
“Children, women and old people were running,” Gander Khan, a 65-year-old returnee, said at the Omari camp.
Pakistan’s latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in retaliation for earlier airstrikes by Islamabad.
Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed over 70 people on both sides.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against 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 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.”
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.”
Several rounds of negotiations between Islamabad and Kabul followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkiye, 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, yesterday offered to help “facilitate dialogue”, while Saudi’s foreign minister spoke with his Pakistani counterpart and China said it was “working with” both countries while calling for calm.
Both the Afghan and Pakistani militaries said they killed dozens of soldiers in recent border violence, which followed multiple strikes by Islamabad on Afghanistan and clashes along the frontier in recent months.
Streets in Kabul were quiet after daybreak, in keeping with a Friday during Ramadan in the Muslim-majority nation.
The Taliban government confirmed the Pakistan strikes, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying there were no casualties.
Hours earlier, he announced “large-scale offensive operations” at the border “in response to repeated violations by the Pakistani military”.
The Afghan defence ministry reported that eight of its soldiers had been killed in the land offensive. — AFP
