Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early Friday, an Afghan government spokesman said, hours after Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan in the latest escalation of violence between the neighboring countries that has left a Qatar-brokered ceasefire looking increasingly precarious, the Associated Press reported.
At least three explosions were heard in Kabul, but there was no immediate information on the exact location of the attacks in the Afghan capital or on any casualties.
Afghanistan said Pakistan also carried out airstrikes in Kandahar in the south and in the southeastern province of Paktia. Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defense minister, acknowledged the Pakistani attacks and declared “open war” on the Taliban government in Afghanistan on Friday, hours after the Pakistani airstrikes.
Tensions have been high between Afghanistan and Pakistan – the two neighbors for months – with deadly border clashes in October that killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.
The violence followed explosions in Kabul Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan. At the time, Islamabad was leading strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.
A ceasefire brokered by Qatar was agreed between the two places on October 19 last year. The ceasefire is largely in place, but both sides have still occasionally fired across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in November failed to produce a formal agreement.
On Sunday, Pakistan’s military carried out strikes along the border with Afghanistan and said it had killed at least 70 militants. Afghanistan denied the claim, saying dozens of civilians, including women and children, had been killed.
Pakistan welcomed the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, with then-Prime Minister Imran Khan declaring that Afghans had “broken the shackles of slavery”. But Islamabad soon discovered that the Taliban were not cooperating as it had hoped, according to a Reuters report.
However, over the years, Pakistan has accused Afghanistan of harboring armed groups led by it Pakistani Talibanknown by the acronym TTP, on its soil.
“In response to repeated insurgencies and insurgencies by the Pakistani army, large-scale offensive operations have been launched against Pakistani military bases and military installations along the Durand Line,” Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on X Thursday evening.
Clashes near the key Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan on the Durand Line resumed on 27 February, according to media reports.
What is Durand’s Line?
At the center of the confrontation lies the Durand Line, a 2,611 km border drawn during British colonial rule in the 19th century. It is named after Sir Mortimer Durand, the British civil servant who negotiated the agreement with Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan.
The border divides ethnic Pashtun communities, fueling political and nationalist tensions.
In 1893, British India and Afghanistan signed an agreement to delimit their spheres of influence. The line divided the Pashtun tribal areas and many Pashtuns remained on both sides. After Pakistan was created in 1947, it inherited the Durand Line as its western border.
While Pakistan recognizes it as an official international border, successive Afghan governments have refused to formally recognize it.
Position of Afghanistan
However, successive administrations in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, have rejected the Durand Line, arguing that it divides the ethnic Pashtun and Baloch homeland.
Afghanistan has historically contested the legitimacy of the Durand Line, arguing that the original agreement was imposed under British pressure and should not automatically apply to Pakistan.
The Taliban have occasionally sent troops to resist Pakistan’s border fencing. Given that all past Afghan governments have refused to recognize this border inherited from colonial times, it is hard to imagine the Taliban doing so, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, a global think tank.
The porous mountainous border has been a major route for militant movements, particularly during the Soviet-Afghan War and the post-2001 conflict with the Taliban.
With both sides trading casualty figures and accusations, the situation remains volatile, raising fears of a wider military confrontation in the region.
Concerns about regional instability
Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told LiveMint that deepening mistrust between neighboring nations is likely to lead to long-term regional instability.
“Islamabad accuses Kabul of actively supporting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban and its attacks on Pakistani territory, while accusing New Delhi of colluding with Kabul in this effort,” he said.
With Pakistan, without providing any evidence, also accusing India of supporting insurgent groups in Balochistan and India criticizing Pakistan for fueling militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, the entire region is caught in a web of insurgency and counter-insurgency allegations, Donthi said.
This deepening mistrust between neighboring nations is likely to lead to long-term regional instability.
“This deepening mistrust between neighboring nations is likely to lead to long-term regional instability,” he said.
