Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities on Friday, including the capital, Kabul, according to officials from both nations, escalating months of tension and border skirmishes into an open conflict.
Beyond Kabul, the strikes hit the southern city of Kandahar — where the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, lives — and the border province of Paktia, according to Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government.
Pakistan launched the strikes hours after Afghan troops had attacked Pakistani border positions, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials. The Afghan attacks were themselves described as retaliation for Pakistani strikes earlier in the week. The New York Times could not immediately confirm a death toll in either country.
“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.”
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent months over Pakistan’s accusations that the Afghan government is providing sanctuary to the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The militant group has waged a relentless campaign against Pakistani security forces in recent years, and last fall claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed a dozen people at a courthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
The Taliban have publicly denied hosting the group.
The clash on Friday comes during the holy month of Ramadan, which United Nations officials hoped would help in brokering a renewed peace between the two countries. Similar mediation efforts by Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia led to a cease-fire in October, but the tenuous truce has been undermined by frequent border clashes in the months since.
Elian Peltier is The Times’s bureau chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, based in Islamabad.
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