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The Taliban government in Afghanistan accused Pakistan’s military on Friday of targeting homes in overnight airstrikes in Kabul and other parts of the country, killing at least six people and wounding more than a dozen, as fighting between the neighbors entered its third week.
Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on X that Pakistani planes also hit the fuel depots of the private company Kam Air near the Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan. “This company supplies fuel to human airlines as well as United Nations planes,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s state television reported that the country’s military had launched a “successful drone strike inside Afghanistan” as part of an ongoing operation, targeting what it said were four suspected militant sites and their support infrastructure in Afghanistan.
The development comes amid a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two countries, which Pakistan has called an “open war.” They add to concerns about stability in the region as the US-Israel war against Iran drags on, creating greater uncertainty.
The dispute stems from Pakistan’s belief that Afghanistan’s Taliban government harbors militant groups that attack it, and that it is allied with Pakistan’s rival India. The Taliban deny that they maintain militant groups.
Tensions flared last month
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been at war with each other since late February, when Kabul said it had stormed Pakistani positions in response to a Pakistani border attack. Pakistan’s military said the operation was targeting the Pakistani Taliban and their support networks across the border.
Pakistan’s defense minister says there is now an ‘open war’ with Afghanistan after both countries launched cross-border airstrikes.
Both sides say they are causing heavy losses in what has been the deadliest war in years.
In Kabul, the Ministry of Defense said that the Afghan army responded to the attack by Pakistan by targeting the installation of Pakistani troops in Kohat district, which caused heavy losses.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information dismissed the claims of the Afghan Ministry of Defense as baseless. In a statement, it said that the Pakistani Taliban tried to plant three drones in Kohat, but the Pakistani military shot them down. Two people died and were injured due to falling debris.
In his writings on X, the spokesman of the Afghan government, Mujahid, alleged that the Pakistani strikes have attacked many inhabited and uninhabited areas in the province of Afghanistan, Paktia and Paktika, and other places. He said the attack “will not go unanswered.”
Kabul police spokesman, Khalid Zadran, said at least four people, including children, died in the city and 15 others were injured.
Additionally, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Information and Culture in Nangarhar province said a Pakistani mortar shell killed a woman and a child there.
The number of casualties in Afghanistan was unclear.
China is trying to mediate
The latest Pakistani strikes came a day after China’s special envoy, Yue Xiaoyong, arrived in Islamabad and met his Pakistani counterpart, Mohammad Sadiq, after visiting Kabul.
Sadiq, who is Pakistan’s special envoy to Afghanistan, said he and Yue “discussed the threats posed by terrorist groups” and agreed on the need for joint efforts to ensure lasting peace and stability.
Repeated calls from the international community for restraint have had little effect. Pakistan has previously said its strikes along the border and inside Afghanistan are aimed only at the Khawarij, a term Islamabad uses for the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
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On Friday, a bomb targeting a police car killed six policemen in Lakki Marwat, a province in the northwest of Pakistan, said police chief Sajjad Khan. No one has claimed responsibility but blame is likely to fall on the TTP, which often seeks such attacks.
Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in 2021, the TTP has intensified attacks inside Pakistan and across the border. Islamabad says its military operations will continue until Kabul takes concrete steps to stop the TTP and other militants operating in its territory.
A Qatar-led ceasefire ended heavy fighting in October, but several peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting deal.
