Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Pakistan launched air strikes on Afghanistan on Friday, saying it had killed hundreds of Taliban forces and associated militants as conflict between the neighbours threatened to escalate into outright war. 

The bombardment included extensive air strikes and artillery fire targeting military installations as well as major urban areas, including the capital Kabul and Kandahar, where Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based. 

The assault came in response to an attack on Thursday night on Pakistani border posts that officials in Islamabad said was carried out by Afghan Taliban forces and the officially separate militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Last weekend, Pakistan carried out air strikes on what it said were militant positions in east Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s military spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Friday evening that at least 12 Pakistani soldiers had died in the clashes, and claimed 274 Afghan Taliban forces and militants affiliated with TTP had been killed.

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Taliban government, said on Friday afternoon that at least 13 Afghan fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed.

This week’s fighting has been the worst for several months as a fragile ceasefire appears to have broken down. Relations between Pakistan and the Taliban have deteriorated over the past year, as Islamabad battles two increasingly violent insurgencies in border regions that it claims receive support from Kabul.

Pakistani defence minister Khawaja Asif, a civilian official who has limited power due to the military’s dominance over policymaking, wrote on X that “it is now open war” between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He also accused the Taliban of being “a proxy for India”, a reference to warming ties between the Islamist group and Islamabad’s arch-rival India.

Islamabad said on Friday it had occupied nine Taliban military positions and destroyed dozens of bases, depots, tanks and artillery guns in Afghanistan. The Taliban said it seized 19 posts in cross-border raids.

The Taliban used drones to attack three army installations in north-western Pakistan, including near Abbottabad, home to the country’s premier military academy, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials.

All were shot down with no casualties, said Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar.

Mujahid said the Taliban launched its “offensive operations” against “Pakistani army centres and facilities” in response to last weekend’s air strikes, which the UN says killed at least 13 civilians.

Pakistan said the Taliban assault was “unprovoked” and claimed its strikes last weekend targeted hide-outs belonging to the TTP and a local branch of Isis. The latter had claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing this month in Islamabad that killed more than 30 people.

“By expanding its targeting from TTP militant facilities to the Taliban regime itself, Pakistan is signalling its willingness to take its fight directly to the Afghan state,” said Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington.

“The Taliban, meanwhile, is messaging its intent to launch a sustained campaign against Pakistan,” he added. “Diplomatic efforts . . . have failed to address the root causes of the crisis.”

The Taliban deny hosting militant groups that target Pakistan, but international observers disagree.

Recommended

Hamid Karzai, the former president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Nato-backed government that was deposed by the Taliban in 2021, wrote on X: “The Afghans will defend their beloved homeland with complete unity in all circumstances.”

Pakistan “must change its own policy and choose the path of good neighbourliness, respect and civilized relations with Afghanistan”, Karzai added.

Since October, negotiators for Islamabad and the Taliban have held four rounds of talks in Doha, Istanbul and Riyadh. These latest tit-for-tat attacks come despite the Taliban releasing three Pakistani soldiers last week under a Saudi Arabia-brokered deal.