Pakistan and Afghanistan claim killing dozens of the other side’s troops in relentless fighting
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani and Afghan forces launched multiple strikes at each other in cross-border clashes Friday, and each side claimed to have killed dozens more enemy troops in what has been the deadliest fighting yet between the two neighbors — a conflict that Islamabad has declared to be an “open war.”
Repeated appeals from the international community for restraint had no effect as the fighting, now in its ninth day, continued unabated.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban-run government’s Defense Ministry said its forces “destroyed numerous Pakistani military posts” along the border in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kunar, Paktia, and Khost provinces, killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistani state-run media said the country’s air force and ground troops inflicted heavy losses in latest strikes targeting Afghan forces and the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP.
Islamabad said fighting is ongoing and that the military “inflicted heavy losses” on Afghanistan, without elaborating.
Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban government in Afghanistan’s capital of harboring the TTP, a charge Kabul denies. Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the TTP has stepped up its attacks within Pakistan.
Islamabad says its military operations, which started last week, will continue until Afghanistan takes verifiable steps to rein in the TTP and other militants operating from its territory.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan has urged for a halt in the fighting, saying it’s worsening Afghanistan’s already grave humanitarian situation. On Friday, the mission known as UNAMA said on X that so far, 56 civilians have been killed inside Afghanistan.
Several people were injured Friday when Afghan mortar shells landed in a village in Mohmand, a district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local official Mohammad Asif said.
Casualty claims have varied widely. This week, Afghanistan said its forces had killed 150 Pakistani soldiers since the fighting began, while 28 Afghan troops were killed.
On Friday, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X that Pakistan’s military has killed 527 Afghan soldiers.
The border region, where militant such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State are also active, is largely inaccessible to the media and The Associated Press could not independently verify the conflicting claims.
It remains unclear whether efforts by other Muslim nations will get Kabul and Islamabad to the negotiating table anytime soon.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to mediate a new ceasefire in a call with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
And a day later, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim spoke with Afghanistan’s Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund, according to the Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
The ongoing clashes ended an earlier ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October, when the two neighbors had again come close to a war. The truce, signed in Qatar at the time, was followed by six days of talks in Istanbul, which resulted in an agreement to extend the truce and hold a third round of negotiations in November.
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Afghan reported from Kabul. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Ishtaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, contributed to this report.