Pakistan says it is in “open war” with Afghanistan, launching strikes in Kabul

Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan on Friday, including the capital Kabul, as Islamabad’s defense minister declared the neighbors “open war” following months of tit-for-tat clashes.

Agence France-Presse reporters in Kabul and Kandahar heard explosions and drones flying overhead, as Pakistan began airstrikes on the Afghan capital and the southern power base of the Taliban regime.

Pakistan’s latest operation comes after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in response to an earlier attack in Islamabad.

Relations between the neighbors have worsened in recent months, with international border crossings largely closed since the battle that killed in October which killed more than 70 people on both sides.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to take action against terrorist groups that attack Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.

Several negotiations followed Qatar’s initial standoff with Turkey, but efforts failed to produce a lasting agreement.

Both militaries claimed to have killed scores of soldiers in the latest cross-border violence, which followed a number of Pakistani strikes in Afghanistan and border clashes in recent months.

“The security targets of the Afghan Taliban were directed at Kabul, Paktia (province) and Kandahar,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar wrote in X, while Defense Minister Khawaja Asif announced “total conflict” with the Taliban government.

“Our patience has come to an end. Now it is an open war between us and you,” he wrote on social media.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country’s military would “have full power to put an end to any aggressive desires”.

In the Afghan capital, AFP journalists heard planes and loud explosions followed by gunfire, for several hours.

An AFP reporter in the southern city of Afghanistan, Kandahar, where the main leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, is based, said he heard planes flying overhead. The Taliban government confirmed the attack by Pakistani airstrikes, its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said there were no casualties.

A few hours earlier, Mujahid announced “massive offensive operations” along the border “in response to repeated violations by the Pakistani military.”

The Ministry of Defense in Afghanistan reported that eight of its soldiers were killed in this incident.

An Afghan official reported that many civilians were injured near the Torkham border, in a camp for Pakistani returnees.

“There was a mortar shell in the camp and unfortunately seven of our refugees were injured, and the condition of one woman is critical,” said Qureshi Badlun, an information officer in Nangarhar province.

While the border has been largely closed since October, Afghan returnees have been allowed to cross.

Mujahid, a Taliban government spokesman, told AFP that many Pakistani soldiers were “captured alive,” a claim denied by the prime minister’s office in Islamabad.

The military operation follows Pakistani strikes in Nangarhar and Paktika provinces late on Sunday, which the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said killed at least 13 civilians. Both sides also reported cross-border fire on Tuesday, but there were no casualties.

There have been a series of suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months.

They include an attack on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that killed at least 40 people and was attributed to the Islamic State group.

The group’s regional chapter, Islamic State-Khorasan, also claimed responsibility for a deadly bomb attack at a restaurant in Kabul last month.

After repeated violations of the initial ceasefire, Saudi Arabia intervened this month, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.