✦ Pakistan claims it killed 274 Taliban soldiers ✦ Afghanistan claims 55 Pakistani soldiers killed

Agencies, Islamabad/Kabul

Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged heavy air and ground strikes on Friday, with both sides reporting sharply different casualty figures in what Pakistani officials described as “open war” along their volatile frontier.

Pakistani air strikes hit 22 Afghan military targets, killing 274 Taliban officials and militants, military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told reporters.

“Our cup of patience has overflowed. Now it is open war between us and you (Afghanistan),” Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said.

The strikes raise the threat of a protracted conflict along the roughly 2,600-kilometre frontier, amid a long-running dispute over Islamabad’s accusation that Kabul harbours militants who carry out attacks inside Pakistan. The Taliban deny the charge, saying Pakistan’s security problems are an internal matter.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 19 posts seized in retaliatory operations. He confirmed that Pakistani forces carried out air strikes on parts of Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia on Thursday night, and on Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Laghman on Friday.

Video shared by Pakistani security officials showed flashes of light along the border and the sound of heavy artillery. Footage from Kabul showed thick plumes of black smoke rising from two sites and a large blaze in part of the capital. Another video showed a building on fire that officials said was a Taliban headquarters in Paktia province.

“Pakistani counter-strikes against targets in Afghanistan continue,” government spokesperson Mosharraf Zaidi said in a post on X, describing the action as a response to “unprovoked Afghan attacks”.

Reuters witnesses in Kabul reported hearing numerous ambulance sirens after loud explosions and the sound of jets overhead.

Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said air strikes had hit 22 Afghan military targets. He said at least 12 Pakistani soldiers and 274 Taliban officials and militants had been killed since Thursday night.

HIGH SECURITY ALERT

Pakistan has been on high alert since launching air strikes earlier this week that it said targeted camps of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, and Islamic State militants in eastern Afghanistan.

Kabul said those strikes killed 13 civilians and reiterated that it does not allow militants to operate from its territory, warning there would be a strong response.

Afghanistan’s state-run Bakhtar News Agency in Nangarhar shared an image of what it described as a battalion of suicide attackers, quoting a security source as saying they were equipped with explosive vests and car bombs and prepared to strike major targets.

Pakistani officials have said in recent days they feared an escalation of militant attacks in urban centres.

Clashes erupted along the frontier on Thursday night after the Taliban launched what it described as retaliatory attacks on Pakistani military installations. Both sides claimed to have destroyed border posts in the fighting.

STRAINED RELATIONS

A statement from the office of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the country stood united behind its armed forces.

“The people of Pakistan and its Armed Forces are fully prepared to safeguard the nation’s security, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said, warning that any aggression would meet a “fitting response”.

In the statement, Sharif said there should be “zero tolerance” over the “malicious actions of the Fitna al-Khawarij and Afghan Taliban regime.”

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which share a roughly 2,611-kilometre border, have deteriorated sharply since October, when fighting killed more than 70 people on both sides.

The tensions stem from Pakistan’s accusations that Kabul has allowed armed groups such as the Pakistan Taliban to use Afghan territory as a base for attacks. The Pakistan Taliban shares ideological ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban but is a separate movement.

Asif said Pakistan had tried to resolve tensions through diplomacy, including engagement via friendly countries, but accused the Taliban of acting as a proxy for India — a claim Kabul has not accepted.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai wrote on X that Afghans would “defend their beloved homeland with complete unity” and respond to aggression with courage.

 ‘GRAVE ESCALATION’

Reporting from Islamabad, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said “from what we have seen so far, heavy casualties have been inflicted”.

“This is a grave escalation, probably the worst since the Taliban took over.”

Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, DC, said the latest clashes came as no surprise following months of “frayed” tensions between the neighbours.

“It is significant to the extent that it represents perhaps a shift in strategy,” Threlkeld said, noting the “more aggressive, kinetic attacks” from Pakistan.

“We’ve seen a couple of terrorist attacks within Pakistan that were quite significant,” she said. “I’m not surprised that after those cumulative attacks, that tensions have frayed and things have again gone in this direction, unfortunately.”