Pakistan Strikes Afghanistan in ‘Open War’ Against Taliban Government

Pakistan and Afghanistan engaged in their fiercest clashes in years on Friday, according to officials from both nations, escalating months of tension and border skirmishes into an open conflict. Afghan troops stormed dozens of Pakistani border positions and Pakistan responded with a wave of airstrikes targeting major cities and military hubs.

Beyond Kabul, home to six million people, the strikes hit the southern city of Kandahar — where the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, lives — and four border provinces, according to Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani military spokesman.

“That’s what has been done so far,” General Sharif said at a news briefing on Friday. “This is continuing.”

Pakistan launched strikes on more than 20 locations, General Sharif said, hours after Afghan troops had attacked more than 50 Pakistani border positions. Afghan officials described that assault as retaliation for Pakistani strikes earlier in the week.

“Our operation last night was a retaliatory operation and a response to Pakistan’s operation, not an attack to start a war against Pakistan,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said at a news conference in Kandahar on Friday.

But Pakistani officials showed no willingness to stop the most expansive fighting in years.

“Our cup of patience has overflowed,” Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, said on social media. “Now it is open war between us and you.”

The fighting comes as both countries have been bracing for the fallout on trade and the movement of people from potential U.S. military strikes in neighboring Iran, adding yet another layer of uncertainty in an area already on edge.

At least one ammunition depot was bombed in Kabul, according to an Afghan military officer who reached the site shortly afterward and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the clashes publicly. Satellite images reviewed by The New York Times confirmed the strike. Pakistan’s state broadcaster said an ammunition depot in Kandahar had also been bombed.

The extent of any casualties or damage from the airstrikes was unclear, while each side claimed to have killed dozens of combatants in the border clashes.

Kabul, dotted with checkpoints and officers in uniform even in calmer times, saw a heavier presence of soldiers and security personnel on the streets on Friday. In most areas, however, residents went on with their errands and gathered at mosques for midday prayers.

The clashes showcased what armies from both countries are well-known for — air power from Pakistan’s side, and ground incursions from Afghanistan’s. The Taliban deployed and mastered ground incursions on isolated military outposts during their 20-year insurgency against the U.S.-led coalition, said Ibraheem Bahiss, an Afghanistan analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“The Pakistanis have replied by using overwhelming force and that escalates the ladder from Kabul’s perspective, which looks at how to respond better,” Mr. Bahiss said.

“The two sides keep doing what they think are measured responses,” Mr. Bahiss added. “But they keep upping the ante.”

Relations between the neighboring countries have deteriorated recently over Pakistan’s accusations that the Afghan government is harboring the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The militant group has killed hundreds of Pakistani security personnel in recent years, and in November claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed a dozen people at a courthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.

Pakistan says the Taliban allow the Pakistani Taliban to train and operate freely in Afghanistan, from where they launch attacks across the 1,600-mile, mountainous border.

The Taliban deny hosting the group and accuse Pakistan’s government of trying to deflect blame for its own domestic security failures. But privately, Afghan officials acknowledge the presence of the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan, at least.

The presence of the Pakistani Taliban and the resurgence of other groups in Afghanistan, including Al Qaeda, has alarmed countries across the region and beyond.

The government in Afghanistan has faced pressure from China and Russia to rein in militant groups operating in the country. China has had sustained diplomatic ties with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, and Russia was the first country last year to recognize the group as the country’s legitimate authority.

The Afghan government has provided the Pakistani Taliban with weapons, including rifles and drones, according to the U.N. Security Council. The United Nations also noted in a report published this month that “Al Qaeda continued to enjoy the patronage of the de facto authorities,” referring to Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration.

Pakistan and Afghanistan released diverging claims on Friday about the number of deaths from the day’s fighting at the border region. The Pakistani military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said at least 274 people had been killed there, though he made no distinction among civilians, Pakistani Taliban fighters and Afghan security forces. Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesman, said 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed.

Since October, Pakistan has kept critical border crossings closed to civilians and traders, reopening them only intermittently to expel Afghans living in Pakistan.

The suspension of trade and the expulsion of more than a million Afghans last year alone have hurt the economies of both countries.

In some villages on the Pakistani side, officials have in recent months instructed families to evacuate as a preventive measure. They have advised residents who chose to remain to seek shelter in basements when tensions flare up.

“The border clashes have now become routine, and it has become almost impossible to live here amid firing and mortar shelling,” said Zar Wali, a farmer and father of four from a village in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province near the Torkham border crossing.

“When firing begins from both sides, we rush our children into the basements and wait for hours, uncertain of what will happen next,” Mr. Wali added.

Longstanding, cross-border ethnic and family ties have frayed in recent months, and in some Pakistani border districts, local officials have urged villagers to support security forces, residents said.

“Some villagers have taken up positions alongside security forces in the trenches and are participating in the exchanges of fire,” said Murtaza Shah, a schoolteacher in the border district of Kurram. “This is a critical time,” he added. “We must stand with our forces, just as communities across the border are backing Taliban fighters.”

The clashes on Friday came during the holy month of Ramadan, which United Nations officials had hoped would be a time to broker peace between the two countries. Despite a cease-fire signed in October, although undermined by frequent border clashes, mediation efforts by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all failed.

Pakistan’s growing hostility toward the Taliban in recent months is a sharp turn from decades of tacit support for the group. The Afghan Taliban leadership lived in southern Pakistan during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. After the Taliban swept back to power in 2021, the Pakistani government initially supported them, and there were even talks that Afghanistan could join a China-Pakistan economic corridor.

That seems out of the question now.

“This is not a government,” Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Pakistani military spokesman, said of the Taliban in a recent interview with The Times. “They are warlords. Afghanistan is a space where a nonstate militia is sitting.”

Yaqoob Akbary contributed reporting from Kabul; Omar Ataullah from Kandahar, Afghanistan; Salman Masood from Islamabad; and Agnes Chang from Seoul.