Tensions along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan surged on Sunday after a fierce overnight clash of the countries’ militaries, with both sides exchanging heavy fire in one of the sharpest escalations of violence between the neighbors in years.
The latest flare-up came after attacks last week in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and at a market near the border, which the Taliban government attributed to Pakistan.
Afghan officials said on Sunday that their security forces had targeted Pakistani military outposts along the border in what they described as “retaliatory operations,” following what Kabul said were Pakistani airstrikes that had violated Afghan airspace and struck a market on Thursday. The Taliban government claimed to have killed dozens of Pakistani soldiers in the overnight attacks.
Pakistani officials confirmed that Pakistan’s military had exchanged fire along the border, killing several Taliban fighters, but they did not immediately address details of the confrontation or the Taliban government’s claims.
The overnight fighting raised concerns that isolated violence could spill into a broader conflict between the two countries, whose governments have become increasingly hostile to each other in recent months. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran have urged restraint. India, which on Friday announced expanded diplomatic ties with the Taliban government, did not immediately react to the clash.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, told reporters on Sunday that the fighting had stopped at midnight after requests from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. “The situation along all official borders and demarcation lines of Afghanistan is under full control,” he said, warning that any violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty “will not go unanswered.”
Pakistan said last week that it had conducted “a series of retribution operations” against Pakistani militants, but it did not mention Afghanistan directly. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Kabul of harboring Pakistani militants who stage attacks from Afghan soil, and it has threatened retribution. But it stopped short of claiming responsibility for the explosions on Thursday in Kabul and at the border market.
Without addressing the specifics of the most recent violence, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan on Sunday praised his country’s armed forces for what he described as a “strong and effective response” to recent Afghan provocations along the border, saying the military had “destroyed several of their border posts, forcing a retreat.”
Officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan have each claimed that their forces captured and destroyed several border posts and killed soldiers on the opposing side at multiple points along the frontier during recent clashes. Their claims could not be independently verified, as access to the border region remains severely limited and restricted.
Major border crossings between the two countries, including Torkham and Chaman-Spin Boldak, have been closed since the overnight clashes, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials.
Afghanistan and Pakistan share a nearly 1,600-mile-long border, snaking along mountainous areas, known as the Durand Line. The militaries of both nations have frequently clashed along the border, often over cross-border attacks, territorial disputes and the construction of new security posts.
Pakistan provided the Taliban support during its insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan, but the relationship has deteriorated since the Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban government of providing a haven to the banned group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the T.T.P. or Pakistani Taliban, whose attacks have killed hundreds of Pakistani security forces in recent years.
On Saturday, the T.T.P. claimed responsibility for a series of attacks across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan, that killed several security personnel and civilians, including in a bombing near a police training facility.
The T.T.P. leadership has received financial support from the Afghan government, and its militants have trained freely in Afghanistan, according to Pakistani military officials and independent and United Nations experts. The Taliban in Afghanistan deny backing the Pakistani group.
Residents in border districts on both sides said in telephone interviews that they witnessed intense overnight clashes that raged for several hours.
“The fighting went on for hours without pause,” said Shabbir Khan, a resident of Kurram, a Pakistani border district, describing the sound of heavy weapons echoing through the mountains.
Aziz Sayar, a resident of the Sawkai district in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, near the border of Pakistan, said the gunfire began around 9 p.m. and continued for over three hours.
“Our children screamed in fear as bullets echoed through the night,” he said.
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