Pakistan’s defence minister has said his country is in an ‘open war’ with neighbouring Afghanistan after a significant escalation of violence.
The comments from Khawaja Mohammad Asif got here after Afghanistan launched a cross-border retaliatory attack on Pakistan overnight that saw Islamabad hit back with air strikes on Kabul.
In a post on X, Asif said that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban.
As an alternative, he claimed that the Taliban had turned Afghanistan ‘right into a colony of India’, Pakistan’s regional arch-rival with which it has engaged in wars and clashes with since gaining independence from British rule in 1947.
India has improved ties with Afghanistan recently, offering to reinforce bilateral trade, to the annoyance of Islamabad.
But Pakistan is unhappy with the arrangement: ‘Our patience has now run out. Now it’s open war between us.’
Where has the fighting been?
Afghan authorities within the eastern province of Nangarhar said that fighting was ongoing within 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, which Pakistan’s defence minister called ‘exporting terrorism’.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of terrorism as militant violence surges in Pakistan, and has claimed Afghanistan supports the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Pakistan accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge each the group and Kabul deny.
Pakistan has often accused neighbouring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations Recent Delhi denies.
Pakistan has carried out air strikes in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in addition to in Kandahar and Paktia – strikes they are saying were in relation to previous attacks from Afghans.
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.
The 2 countries’ greater than 1,600-mile-long border is often known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised.
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 were wounded, with 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases deployed, and that the fighting ended around midnight, about 4 hours after it began on Thursday.
Pakistani information minister Attaullah Tarar said that two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three were wounded.
What sparked the conflict?
Tension has been high between the 2 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, on the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to focus on militant hideouts.
A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the fighting, although the 2 sides still occasionally traded fire across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to provide a proper agreement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged each side to guard civilians as required under international law.
Russia called for a direct halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told Russian news agency 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 within the Islamic world’.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those within the country to go away of their very own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the identical time.
Since then, thousands and thousands have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including individuals who were born in Pakistan many years ago and had built lives and created businesses there. Last yr alone, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the UN refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned up to now this yr.
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