Pakistan strikes Kabul hours after Afghanistan attack on border troops | Afghanistan

Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early Friday, Afghanistan’s government spokesperson said, hours after Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in the latest escalation of violence between the volatile neighbours that made a Qatar-mediated ceasefire appear increasingly shaky.

At least three explosions were heard in Kabul, but there was no immediate information on the exact location of the strikes in the Afghan capital, or of any potential casualties.

Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Friday that the strikes on Afghanistan were a “befitting response”.

“Pakistan’s armed forces have given a befitting response to the Afghan Taliban’s open aggression,” said Naqvi, hours after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops in what the Taliban government said was retaliation for earlier deadly airstrikes.

Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistan also carried out airstrikes in Kandahar to the south and in the south-eastern province of Paktian.

Afghanistan said its military launched its attack across the border into Pakistan late on Thursday in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday, and claimed to have captured more than a dozen Pakistani army posts.

Pakistan’s government, which had described last Sunday’s airstrikes as an attack on militants harboured in the area, said Thursday’s Afghan attack was unprovoked, and dismissed claims that army posts had been captured.

The two countries’ 2,611km long border is known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised.

Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the attack on Thursday, including some whose bodies had been taken into Afghanistan, while “several others were captured alive.” It put its own casualties at eight killed and another 11 wounded. The ministry said it had destroyed 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases, and that the fighting had ended at midnight, about four hours after the start of the attack.

Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar, however, said the number of Pakistani soldiers killed stood at two, with three others wounded. He said 36 Afghan fighters had been reported killed.

Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured.

Afghan authorities were evacuating a refugee camp near the Torkham border crossing after several refugees were wounded, said Qureshi Badlon, head of Torkham’s Information and Public Awareness Board. The Defense Ministry said 13 civilians were wounded in a missile strike on the camp, including women and children.

On the Pakistani side of the border, local police said residents were also evacuating to safer areas, while some Afghan refugees who had been waiting to cross back into Afghanistan were also moved to secure locations. Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown on migrants in October 2023 and has expelled hundreds of thousands of people.

Pakistani police said mortars fired from Afghanistan had landed in nearby villages, but there were no reports of civilian casualties.

“Pakistan will take all necessary measures to ensure its territorial integrity and the safety and security of its citizens,” Pakistan’s information ministry said in a post on X.

Tension has been high between the two 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, at the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.

A Qatari-mediated ceasefire between the two countries has largely held, but the two sides have still occasionally traded fire across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in November failed to produce a formal agreement.