ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has carried out airstrikes on the Afghan cities of Kabul and Kandahar, a government official confirmed, as tensions sharply escalate between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban administration, BBC reported.
The strikes came just hours after Pakistan reported that two of its soldiers were killed during an operation attributed to the Afghan Taliban. In response to the deteriorating situation, Pakistan’s defence minister described the confrontation as an “open war” with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
The two countries had agreed to a fragile ceasefire in October following deadly cross-border clashes. However, violence has reignited in recent days along their shared 1,600-mile (2,574-kilometre) mountainous frontier.
As in previous flare-ups, both sides have blamed each other for initiating the latest round of fighting and have claimed to have caused significant casualties.
Pakistani officials said on Friday that they conducted what they termed “counter-strikes” on multiple Afghan cities, including Kabul and Kandahar, in response to what they described as unprovoked attacks from across the border.
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban said it had launched a “large-scale” operation following earlier strikes this week that it claims killed at least 18 people. Pakistan has maintained that its earlier actions targeted suspected militant camps and hideouts.
Taliban military spokesperson Mawlawi Wahidullah Mohammadi said the retaliatory campaign began at around 8:00 pm local time (15:30 GMT) on Thursday. The group’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed that numerous Pakistani soldiers were killed and others captured during the offensive, although Pakistani authorities have rejected those assertions.
(Inputs from BBC)
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