Islamabad government, ‘we can crush the enemy, the country is with the army’
Pakistan’s defense minister has declared “open war” on the Taliban government following a clash between the two sides. “Our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you,” wrote Khawaja Asif on “Our forces have full capacity to crush any aggressive ambition,” Sharif said, according to the Pakistani government’s X page. “The entire nation stands with the Pakistan Armed Forces,” he added. Pakistan bombed major Afghan cities, including the capital Kabul. Pakistan’s latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops last night, in response to earlier airstrikes by Islamabad. Relations between the neighbors have worsened in recent months, with land border crossings largely closed after bloody fighting in October that left more than 70 people dead on both sides. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups carrying out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies. Most of the attacks were claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has stepped up attacks in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Several rounds of negotiations between Islamabad and Kabul followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but the efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement. Both the Afghan and Pakistani armies said they had killed dozens of soldiers in the latest wave of border violence, which followed multiple attacks in Islamabad in Afghanistan and clashes along the border in recent months. In the Afghan capital, AFP journalists heard jets and numerous explosions, followed by gunshots, for several hours. A reporter in the southern city of Kandahar, where Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based, said he heard jets overhead. The streets of Kabul were quiet after dawn, in keeping with a Ramadan Friday in the Muslim-majority nation. Taliban authorities have not significantly increased the presence of security forces or checkpoints, AFP journalists across the city reported.
Iran has offered its help to “facilitate dialogue” between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote this on X.
According to a Pakistani government spokesperson, counterattacks against targets in Afghanistan continue. In total, 133 Afghan Taliban were killed and more than 200 were injured. Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesman for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said in a statement: “The deaths of 133 Afghan Taliban have been confirmed and more than 200 injured. Many more are estimated to have been killed in attacks on military targets in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar.”
Furthermore, 27 Afghan Taliban positions were destroyed and nine were captured. “Two corps headquarters, three brigade headquarters, two ammunition depots, one logistics base, three battalion headquarters, two sector headquarters and more than 80 tanks, artillery and troop transports were destroyed,” he said.
