Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan on Friday and declared “open war” with its western neighbour as tensions over rising militant violence in the region boiled over.
The airstrikes hit the capital of Kabul and the city of Kandahar, where senior leaders of the ruling Taliban, including supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, were said to be based.
Islamabad claimed the strikes targeted Islamist and ethnic insurgents responsible for carrying out terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.
The missile strikes were also aimed at Taliban military offices and posts in Kabul city, Kandahar’s Daman district as well as Paktika province in southern Afghanistan, security sources in Pakistan said. Daman is home to a base of the Taliban border guard.
Officials also confirmed ground clashes in multiple sectors of the border between the countries.
Afghan authorities in the eastern Nangarhar province said fighting was going on in the Torkham border area.
The province’s information directorate said Pakistani mortar fire hit civilian areas in Torkham, including a refugee camp that had been evacuated overnight. In response, Afghan forces were targeting Pakistani army posts across the border.
The airstrikes came hours after the Taliban announced they were conducting retaliatory attacks on Pakistani military installations in response to last Sunday’s attacks by Pakistani forces that killed 13 civilians.
Both sides reported heavy losses in the latest fighting, issuing sharply diverging tolls. The Independent could not immediately verify the figures.
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said his country’s “patience had run out” and the two nations were now engaged in an “open war”.
“Now it is open war between us,” he declared.
There was no immediate reaction from Kabul.
Asif said Pakistan had hoped for peace after the withdrawal of Nato forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban, which then seized power, to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability.
Islamabad frequently accuses its western neighbour of sheltering militants responsible for carrying out deadly attacks in Pakistan, particularly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army.
Kabul denies the allegations and says it will never allow Afghan soil to be used for terrorist activities.
Pakistan also accuses its eastern neighbour India of backing the Baloch separatists and the Pakistani Taliban. India denies the allegations.
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