Aimal Zahir /AFP via Getty Images
Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan on Friday, including the capital Kabul, with Islamabad’s defense minister declaring the neighbors at “open war” following months of tit-for-tat clashes.
Agence France-Presse journalists in Kabul and Kandahar heard blasts and jets overhead, as Pakistan launched air strikes on the Afghan capital and southern power base of the Taliban authorities.
Pakistan’s latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night over earlier air strikes by Islamabad.
Relations between the neighbors 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.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.
Several rounds of negotiations followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but the efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Both militaries said they killed dozens of soldiers in the latest round of border violence, which followed multiple Pakistani strikes on Afghanistan and clashes along the frontier in recent months.
“Afghan Taliban defence targets were targeted in Kabul, Paktia (province) and Kandahar,” Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X, while defense minister Khawaja Asif declared an “all-out confrontation” with the Taliban government.
“Our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you,” he posted on the social media platform.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country’s armed forces can “have the full capability to crush any aggressive ambitions”.
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 Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar, where Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based, said he heard jets overhead. The Taliban government confirmed the Pakistani air strikes, with spokesman Zabihullah 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 defense ministry reported eight of its soldiers had been killed in the land offensive.
An Afghan official reported multiple civilians wounded near the Torkham border crossing, at a camp for people returning from Pakistan.
“A mortar shell has hit the camp and unfortunately seven of our refugees have been wounded, and the condition of one woman is serious,” said Qureshi Badlun, the information chief in Nangarhar province.
While the border has largely been closed since October, Afghan returnees have been allowed to cross.
Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesman, 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 Pakistani strikes on Nangarhar and Paktika provinces overnight into Sunday, which the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said killed at least 13 civilians. Both sides also reported cross-border fire on Tuesday, but without casualties.
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.
After repeated breaches of the initial ceasefire, Saudi Arabia intervened this month, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.
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