By MUNIR AHMED and ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN Associated Press
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged cross-border attacks overnight in a dramatic escalation of tensions that led to Pakistan’s defense minister to say on Friday that the two countries are in a state of “open war.”
Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan late Thursday, saying it was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday. Pakistan then carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early Friday, saying it targeted military installations.
“We have targeted important military targets in Pakistan, sending a message that our hands can reach their throats and that we will respond to every evil act of Pakistan,” Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in televised comments from Kandahar Friday. “Pakistan has never sought to resolve problems through dialogue.”
After the Afghan strikes, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said in a post on X: “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
Asif said Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban, which seized power in the country, to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability.
Instead, he said the Taliban had turned Afghanistan “into a colony of India,” with which Pakistan has periodically engaged in wars, clashes and skirmishes since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947. India’s ties with Afghanistan have improved recently, with offers of enhanced bilateral trade, to the annoyance of Islamabad.
Tensions have been high for months, with border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that then stage attacks across the border and also of allying with its archrival India.
A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the fighting, although the two sides still occasionally trade fire. Several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to produce a formal agreement.
‘Exporting terrorism’
Afghan authorities in the eastern Nangarhar province said fighting was ongoing in the Torkham border area Friday morning. The province’s information directorate said 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, it said.
Asif accused Afghanistan of “exporting terrorism.” Islamabad frequently levies the allegation at its western neighbor as militant violence has surged in Pakistan, accusing Afghanistan of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, and outlawed Baloch separatist groups.
Pakistan accuses the TTP — which is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban — of operating from inside Afghanistan. Both the group and Kabul deny that charge.
“Pakistan’s internal conflict is a purely domestic issue and is not a new one,” Mujahid said Friday, noting the TTP had been active for nearly two decades.
Pakistan has also frequently accused neighboring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies.
Retaliatory strikes
Afghanistan said Thursday’s cross-border attack was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday.
The governments have issued sharply differing casualty claims.
Pakistan’s army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistani air and ground operations killed at least 274 members of Afghan forces and affiliated militants and wounded more than 400, while 12 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 27 others were wounded. One Pakistani soldier was missing in action.
Mujahid rejected the claims of the high number of Afghan casualties as “false.” He said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed with the bodies of 23 of them taken to Afghanistan. He also said “many” Pakistani soldiers were captured. Thirteen Afghan soldiers had been killed, he said, and another 22 wounded, while 13 civilians were also wounded. A religious school in Paktika province was bombed on Friday morning, he added, saying information on potential casualties there was not yet available.
The casualty claims of either side could not be independently verified.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s anti-drone systems shot down several small drones over the northwestern cities of Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera Friday. He said the drones appeared to be part of a failed attack by the Pakistani Taliban, and there were no casualties. Tarar claimed the drone attacks “once again exposed direct linkages between the Afghan Taliban regime and terrorism in Pakistan.”
International calls for restraint
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held separate phone calls with his Pakistani, Afghan, Qatari and Saudi counterparts on Friday to discuss the conflict, a Turkish official said, without providing details on the talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
In October, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had facilitated talks between the sides.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides to protect civilians as required under international law and “to continue to seek to resolve any differences through diplomacy,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Russia called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told news agency RIA Novosti. Kabulov, who is President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said that Moscow would consider mediating between the two countries if asked, according to RIA Novosti.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their differences through dialogue during the holy month of Ramadan. He also said that Tehran was ready to assist in facilitating dialogue.
Refugees at the border
Pakistani authorities said that dozens of Afghan refugees in the Torkham border area had been relocated to safer places.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.
Since then, millions have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.
In 2025, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the U.N. refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned so far this year.
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Abdul Qahar Afghan reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, also contributed to this story.