Pakistan, Afghanistan trade heavy fire along border after Islamabad accuses Kabul of sheltering TTP

KABUL , OCT 12 : Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday, reported 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.

“In retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul,” Taliban forces are engaged “in heavy clashes against Pakistani security forces in various areas” along the border, the Afghan military said in a statement.

Several unconfirmed social media posts, accompanied by purported visuals, claimed that an aircraft belonging to the Pakistani military was shot down by the Afghan Taliban.

Later, Taliban defence ministry spokesman Enayat Khowarazm told AFP the “successful” operations had ended at midnight.

But he warned: “If the opposing side violates Afghanistan’s territory again, our armed forces are ready to defend their territory and will respond firmly.”

Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind Thursday’s 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.

Taliban officials from Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost, and Helmand provinces — all located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan — confirmed that clashes were ongoing.

“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.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on his country’s neighbours “to exercise restraint”.

In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Earlier this year, a UN report said the TTP “receive substantial logistical and operational support from the de facto authorities”, referring to the Taliban government in Kabul.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament on Thursday that several efforts to convince the Afghan Taliban to stop backing the TTP had failed.

“We will not tolerate this any longer,” Asif said. “United, we must respond to those facilitating them, whether the hideouts are on our soil or Afghan soil.”

Earlier Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several districts in northwest Pakistan that killed 20 security officials and three civilians

Several unconfirmed social media posts, accompanied by purported visuals, claimed that an aircraft belonging to the Pakistani military was shot down by the Afghan Taliban. 

MEA denies role in exclusion of women journalists from Afghan FM Muttaqi’s press conference

This comes on the same day as Pakistan summoned the Afghan ambassador to convey its “strong reservations” over the India-Afghanistan joint statement issued in New Delhi a day earlier.

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who landed in New Delhi on Thursday, is on a six-day visit to India. The Foreign Office (FO) in a statement said the Additional Foreign Secretary (West Asia & Afghanistan) conveyed Pakistan’s “”strong reservations”” to the Afghan envoy regarding references made to Jammu and Kashmir in the joint statement.

It was conveyed that the reference to Jammu and Kashmir as part of India is in clear violation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. . . ,” the Foreign Office said.

According to the joint statement, Afghanistan has strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir in April and expressed condolences and solidarity with the people and the Government of India.

Both sides unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism emanating from regional countries as they underscored the importance of promoting peace, stability, and mutual trust in the region.

Islamabad also rejected Muttaqi’s assertion that terrorism is an internal issue of Pakistan. The statement emphasised that shifting responsibility for controlling terrorism onto Pakistan could not absolve the Afghan Interim Government of its obligations to ensure regional peace and stability.

Highlighting Pakistan’s long-standing hospitality, the FO said the country had hosted nearly four million Afghans for over four decades. With peace returning to Afghanistan, Pakistan reiterated that unauthorised Afghan nationals residing in the country should return home. “Like all other countries, Pakistan has the right to regulate the presence of foreign nationals residing inside its territory,” it said, adding that Islamabad continued to issue medical and study visas to Afghan citizens “in the spirit of Islamic brotherhood and good neighbourly relations.”

FO said Pakistan is desirous of seeing a peaceful, stable, regionally connected and prosperous Afghanistan. Reaffirming its desire for a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan, the FO said Pakistan had extended trade, economic, and connectivity facilitation to promote socio-economic cooperation between the two nations.

However, it stressed that Pakistan also had a duty to ensure the safety of its people and expected the Afghan government to take “” concrete measures” to prevent its territory from being used by terrorist elements against Pakistan.

-AFP