Why are Pakistan and Afghanistan fighting? Countries declare ‘open war’
Pakistan’s defence minister has said his country is in an ‘open war’ with neighbouring Afghanistan after a major escalation of violence.
The comments from Khawaja Mohammad Asif came after Afghanistan launched a cross-border retaliatory attack on Pakistan overnight that saw Islamabad hit back with air strikes on Kabul.
In a post on X, Asif said that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces in 2021.
Instead, in the years after, Asif has claimed the Taliban turned Afghanistan ‘into a colony of India’, Pakistan’s regional arch-rival with which it has engaged in wars and clashes with since gaining independence from British rule in 1947.
India has improved ties with Afghanistan recently, offering to enhance bilateral trade, to the annoyance of Islamabad.
But Pakistan is unhappy with the arrangement: ‘Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.’
Where has the fighting been?
Afghan authorities in the eastern province of Nangarhar said that fighting was ongoing in the Torkham border area on Friday morning.
The province’s information directorate said that Pakistani mortar fire hit civilian areas in Torkham, including a refugee camp which had been evacuated overnight.
In response, Afghanistan was targeting Pakistani army posts across the border, which Pakistan’s defence minister called ‘exporting terrorism’.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of terrorism as militant violence surges in Pakistan, and has claimed Afghanistan supports the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).
The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. Pakistan accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge both the group and Kabul deny.
Pakistan has frequently accused neighbouring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies.
Pakistan has carried out air strikes in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, as well as in Kandahar and Paktia – strikes they say were in relation to previous attacks from Afghans.
Afghanistan said that its military launched its attack late Thursday into Pakistan along the border in six provinces, in retaliation for deadly Pakistani air strikes on Afghan border areas on Sunday.
The two countries’ more than 1,600-mile-long border is known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised.
Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said overnight that 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, including some whose bodies were taken into Afghanistan, and that ‘several others were captured alive’.
It said that eight Afghan soldiers were killed and 11 were wounded, with 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases deployed, and that the fighting ended around midnight, about four hours after it began on Thursday.
Pakistani information minister Attaullah Tarar said that two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three were wounded.
What sparked the conflict?
Tension has been high between the two neighbours for months, with deadly border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.
The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad, at the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.
A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the fighting, although the two sides still occasionally traded fire across the border. Several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to produce a formal agreement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged both sides to protect civilians as required under international law.
Russia called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their differences through dialogue during Ramadan, ‘a time of self-restraint and solidarity in the Islamic world’.
Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.
Since then, millions have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there. Last year alone, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the UN refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned so far this year.
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