Pakistan in ‘open war’ with Afghanistan after new strikes, defence minister says

Pakistan’s defence minister has said his country considers itself in an “open war” with neighbouring Afghanistan in the worst escalation of violence since a Qatar-mediated ceasefire in October.

The comments by defence minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif came after Afghanistan launched a cross-border retaliatory attack on Pakistan overnight that saw Islamabad hit back with air strikes on Kabul.

Mr Asif said in a post on X that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban, which seized power in the country, to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability.

Instead, he claimed that the Taliban had turned Afghanistan “into a colony of India”, Pakistan’s regional arch-rival with which it has periodically engaged in wars, clashes and skirmishes since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

India has had improved ties with Afghanistan recently, offering to enhance bilateral trade, to the annoyance of Islamabad.

“Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,” Mr Asif said.

Afghan authorities in the eastern province of Nangarhar said that fighting was ongoing in the Torkham border area on Friday morning.

The province’s information directorate said that Pakistani mortar fire hit civilian areas in Torkham, including a refugee camp which had been evacuated overnight. In response, Afghanistan was targeting Pakistani army posts across the border, it said.

The defence minister accused Afghanistan of “exporting terrorism”.

Islamabad frequently levies the allegation at its western neighbour as militant violence has surged in Pakistan, accusing Afghanistan of supporting the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and outlawed Baloch separatist groups.

The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Pakistan accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge both the group and Kabul deny.

Pakistan has frequently accused neighbouring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies.

Mr Asif’s comments came hours after Pakistan carried out air strikes in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, as well as in Kandahar in the south and the province of Paktia in the south-east, according to Pakistani officials and Afghanistan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid.

Pakistan says the strikes were in retaliation for the Afghan cross-border attacks.

Afghanistan said that its military launched its attack late Thursday into Pakistan along the border in six provinces, in retaliation for deadly Pakistani air strikes on Afghan border areas on Sunday.

“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,” Mr Mujahid said on X on Thursday night.

The two countries’ more than 1,600 mile-long border is known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised.

Both governments have issued sharply differing casualty claims and said that they inflicted heavy losses on the other. The claims could not be independently verified.

Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said overnight that 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, including some whose bodies were taken into Afghanistan, and that “several others were captured alive”. It said that eight Afghan soldiers were killed and 11 wounded.

The ministry said that it destroyed 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases, and that the fighting ended around midnight, about four hours after it began on Thursday.

Pakistani information minister Attaullah Tarar said that two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three wounded.

Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, a spokesperson for Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured. He said on X that at least 133 Afghan fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded. He also said that 27 Afghan installations were destroyed and nine fighters captured.

He did not specify where the casualties occurred, but said that additional losses were estimated in strikes on military targets in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar.

Tension has been high between the two neighbours 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 ended the fighting, although the two sides still occasionally traded fire across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to produce a formal agreement.

UN secretary-general Antonio 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 in a statement.

Russia called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

Mr Kabulov, who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said that Moscow would consider mediating between the two countries if requested to do so, according to Ria Novosti.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their differences through dialogue during Ramadan, “a time of self-restraint and solidarity in the Islamic world”.

He said that Tehran is ready to assist in facilitating dialogue between the two countries.

Pakistani authorities said that dozens of Afghan refugees at the Torkham border had been relocated to safer places.

Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.

Since then, millions have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.

Last year alone, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the UN refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned so far this year.