Pakistan has introduced it’s now in an “open warfare” with the Taliban-led authorities of Afghanistan because it carried out main airstrikes on Afghan cities in a single day, escalating months of simmering border tensions between the Islamic neighbours.
The air and floor strikes within the early hours of Friday focused Taliban navy posts, headquarters and ammunition depots in a number of sectors alongside the border, simply hours after the Taliban launched an air assault on Pakistan’s border forces.
Each side have reported heavy losses within the preventing, with Pakistan saying it has killed 133 Afghan Taliban fighters and wounded greater than 200, with 27 posts destroyed and 9 captured, following months of tit-for-tat clashes.
The Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, stated 55 Pakistani troopers have been killed and 19 posts seized, whereas eight Taliban fighters have been killed, 11 wounded and 13 civilians injured in Nangarhar province.
Pakistani defence minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, confirmed the aerial raid and stated: “Our cup of persistence has overflowed. Now it’s open warfare between us and also you [Afghanistan].”
The Taliban authorities and Pakistan have been engaged in a diplomatic and navy confrontation for months now, regardless of being in a ceasefire for a number of months. The tensions worsened over the weekend after Pakistan launched air strikes on militant targets in Afghanistan, during which 13 civilians have been killed, based on the UN knowledge.
Earlier, border clashes between the 2 international locations killed dozens of troopers in October till negotiations facilitated by Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia halted the hostilities and a fragile ceasefire was put in place.
Pakistan’s navy launched air raids inside Afghanistan within the early hours on 22 February, focusing on what officers described as “camps and hideouts” linked to armed teams blamed for a current wave of assaults, together with a lethal suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad.
Pakistan’s ministry of knowledge and broadcasting stated the armed forces carried out “intelligence-based, selective operations” in opposition to seven websites related to the Pakistan Taliban, often known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and its associates.
The ministry added that the Isis affiliate in Khorasan province, which claimed accountability for a suicide assault within the capital earlier this month, was additionally focused.
Afghanistan’s ministry of defence condemned the strikes, saying they hit a non secular college and residential houses within the japanese border provinces of Nangarhar and Paktika, inflicting dozens of deaths and accidents, together with amongst girls and youngsters.
Calling the raids a violation of worldwide regulation and “the ideas of excellent neighbourliness”, the Afghan defence ministry stated it will reply. “We maintain the Pakistani navy accountable for focusing on civilians and spiritual websites. We’ll reply to those assaults sooner or later with a measured and acceptable response,” it stated.
The strikes danger undermining a tenuous ceasefire between the South Asian neighbours, brokered after lethal border clashes in October final yr left dozens of troopers, civilians and suspected fighters lifeless.
Pakistan stated it has repeatedly referred to as on Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to curb armed teams working from Afghan soil, however that Kabul has didn’t “undertake any substantive motion”.
Whereas asserting that Pakistan “has all the time strived to keep up peace and stability within the area”, the assertion burdened that the security and safety of Pakistani residents stays its foremost precedence.
In October, the 2 international locations declared a ceasefire after a number of days of intense border preventing that left dozens lifeless on either side and sharply escalated regional tensions.
What sparked the newest clashes?
Pakistan’s cross-border strikes adopted a string of high-profile assaults at dwelling. Simply hours earlier, a suicide bomber focused a safety convoy in Bannu, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing two troopers, together with a lieutenant colonel.
Earlier, final week, one other suicide attacker, supported by gunmen, drove an explosives-filled car into the wall of a safety publish in close by Bajaur. The assault killed 11 troopers and a baby. Officers later recognized the bomber as an Afghan nationwide.
On 6 February, a suicide attacker set off explosives throughout noon prayers on the Khadija Tul Kubra mosque in Islamabad’s Tarlai Kalan neighbourhood, leaving not less than 31 worshippers lifeless and 170 injured.
The Islamic State Khorasan Province claimed accountability for the Islamabad bombing.
In Islamabad, safety analyst Abdullah Khan recommended that the Pakistani strikes point out that Qatari, Turkish, and even Saudi-led mediations have didn’t resolve tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “These strikes are more likely to additional escalate the state of affairs,” he was quoted as saying by the Related Press.
Is Pakistan using a brand new deterrence framework?
Final yr in October, analysts famous that Pakistan was discovering it more and more arduous to miss the rising fatalities brought on by assaults that it claims are launched from Afghan soil.
In accordance with the Centre for Analysis and Safety Research, an Islamabad-based think-tank, greater than 2,400 members of Pakistan’s safety forces had been killed within the first 9 months of 2025 alone, placing the nation on monitor for its deadliest yr in a decade.
Assaults had surged for the reason that removing of former prime minister Imran Khan just a few years in the past. Khan’s administration had labored with the Taliban to barter a TTP ceasefire. Whereas that truce collapsed throughout his tenure, the frequency of assaults remained comparatively decrease.
Relations worsened additional as Islamabad more and more carried out airstrikes inside Afghan territory, focusing on areas it stated have been utilized by TTP fighters. Analysts level to the uptick in TTP assaults on Pakistani forces as the first set off for the current border clashes.
They believed that Islamabad was trying to determine a brand new deterrence framework, signalling that any assault perceived to originate from Afghanistan, whether or not carried out by the TTP or different armed teams, will set off penalties for Kabul.
“Any assault which emanates from Afghanistan might be responded [to] with [the] identical ferocity on their territory, with Pakistan implying that [the] Afghan Taliban are facilitating such assaults in Pakistan, and thus are official targets,” Abdul Basit, a scholar on the Worldwide Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Analysis at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam Faculty of Worldwide Research, was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera, on the time.
Pakistan’s border areas have lengthy been hotspots of battle, relationship again to 1979 when the nation turned a frontline state within the US-backed warfare in opposition to the then Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
In accordance with the defence analyst Abdullah Khan, who can also be the managing director of the Pakistan Institute for Battle and Safety Research, the world’s instability worsened after the 9/11 assaults.
He informed the Related Press in October final yr: “After the September 11 assaults, Pakistan’s tribal belt descended into chaos because the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda and different teams operated from either side of the border for assaults on Nato forces and Pakistani safety forces.”
Tensions between the 2 neighbours are additional compounded by Pakistan’s deportation of tens of 1000’s of Afghan refugees. Because the a long time of battle started, not less than 3 million Afghans have sought refuge in Pakistan, creating further friction between the 2 neighbours.
How have worldwide leaders responded?
In October, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border clashes drew concern from regional powers, urging either side to train restraint and prioritise dialogue to stop escalation.
Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia all referred to as for diplomacy to keep up regional stability and safety.
India didn’t remark, although Pakistan is cautious of New Delhi’s engagement with the Taliban, some observers notice.
Saudi Arabia’s ministry of international affairs stated in October: “The dominion requires restraint, avoiding escalation, and embracing dialogue and knowledge to contribute to decreasing tensions and sustaining safety and stability within the area.
“The dominion affirms its help for all regional and worldwide efforts aimed toward selling peace and stability and its continued dedication to making sure safety, which can obtain stability and prosperity for the brotherly Pakistani and Afghan peoples,” it added.
Iranian international minister Abbas Araghchi stated on the time: “Our place is that either side should train restraint,” and added that “stability” between the 2 international locations “contributes to regional stability”.
Qatar’s ministry of international affairs additionally urged “either side to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy, train restraint, and work to comprise the disputes in a method that helps cut back pressure, avoids escalation, and contributes to regional peace and stability”.
China additionally referred to as for safeguarding its residents and investments, Russia urged either side to train restraint, and US president Donald Trump recommended he may step in to assist resolve the battle.
How is India concerned?
In October, the clashes coincided with Taliban international minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s first go to to India for the reason that group returned to energy.
Kabul-based analyst Ibraheem Bahiss of the Worldwide Disaster Group recommended that Muttaqi’s high-profile reception in India was “most likely an element within the final resolution by the Pakistan Military to escalate within the main method that we noticed”.
Following the go to, The Hindu reported that Pakistan summoned the Afghan ambassador to specific its “sturdy reservations” concerning the India-Afghanistan joint assertion, during which each international locations “unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism emanating from regional international locations”.
From the mid-Nineteen Nineties till current years, India had regarded the Taliban as a proxy for Pakistan’s intelligence companies, holding the group and its allies accountable for lethal assaults on Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, following the Taliban’s return to energy and amid rising tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, India has pursued a sequence of diplomatic engagements with the brand new Afghan management, culminating in Mr Muttaqi’s go to.
“Pakistani media has been livid over Muttaqi’s go to to India,” Afghan content material creator Pathan Bhai stated in a video, based on India Immediately.
What have been the official responses to the clashes?
Afghanistan’s defence ministry denounced the assaults as a blatant violation of its sovereignty and a breach of worldwide regulation, stating that “an acceptable and measured response might be taken at an appropriate time”.
In the meantime, the international ministry stated it had summoned Pakistan’s ambassador over what it described as violations of Afghan airspace and the focusing on of civilians, labelling the strikes “a provocative act”.
What occurs subsequent?
Though TTP’s presence stays a key irritant for Pakistan, analysts consider the current Pakistan-Afghanistan border clashes are unlikely to escalate into a bigger battle. Afghanistan lacks standard navy energy in contrast with Pakistan, and either side seem targeted on de-escalation for the time being.
Nonetheless, the border is predicted to remain tense for the foreseeable future, as Pakistan has signalled it would proceed taking motion in opposition to militants it claims are crossing from Afghanistan to focus on its safety forces.
