Afghanistan’s eastern frontier flared up this weekend — a border that has rarely known peace since colonial lines sliced through Pashtun lands. The Taliban, now the state it once fought from the shadows, said its forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani troops after Islamabad’s alleged air strikes on Afghan soil. From Kunar to Helmand, provinces that have lived on the edge of someone’s war for decades, local officials confirmed that clashes were ongoing.On Saturday, Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said.
“In retaliation for the air strikes by Pakistani forces,” Taliban border forces in the east “engaged in heavy clashes against Pakistani forces’ posts in various border areas,” the Afghan military said in a statement, quoted by AFP.On Thursday, two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and another in the southeast of the country. The following day, the Taliban-run defence ministry blamed the attacks on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of “violating its sovereignty.”Later, Taliban defence ministry spokesman Enayat Khowarazm told news agency AFP that the operations had concluded “successfully” at midnight.He added a warning: “If the opposing side again violates Afghanistan’s territory, our armed forces are prepared to defend it and will respond decisively.”Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind the attacks, but called on Kabul “to stop harbouring the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil.” The TTP, trained in combat in Afghanistan and claiming to share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, is accused by Islamabad of having killed hundreds of its soldiers since 2021.“This evening, Taliban forces began using weapons. We fired first light and then heavy artillery at four points along the border,” a senior official in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, told AFP.“Pakistani forces responded with heavy fire and shot down three Afghan quadcopters suspected of carrying explosives. Intense fighting continues, but so far, no casualties have been reported,” he continued.In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas along the border.Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.
