Pakistan’s defence minister has said the country is in an “open war” with neighbouring Afghanistan, after both nations launched strikes overnight.
Khawaja Muhammad Asif said Islamabad’s patience had run out as tensions escalated, with casualties reported on both sides.
“Our cup of patience has overflowed,” he said in a social media post. “Now it is open war between us and you [Afghanistan].”
He alleged the Taliban had turned Afghanistan “into a colony of India”, gathered militants from around the world and had started “exporting terrorism”.
There has been no reaction from Afghan government officials to Mr Asif’s comments.
Pakistan carried out strikes on the Afghan capital Kabul and two other provinces overnight, Afghanistan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, just hours after Afghanistan launched a cross-border attack on Pakistan.
The two neighbours have had a complicated relationship since Pakistan’s founding in 1947.
Pakistan supported the Afghan mujahideen in the Soviet–Afghan War, even taking in Afghan refugees.
Pakistan later became one of the only states to recognise the Taliban-led government in Kabul in the late 1990s and even supported their second takeover in 2021.
But warm relations began to sour after the emergence of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan – otherwise known as the Pakistani Taliban.
In Pakistan, they have become known for carrying out suicide bombings against political opponents.
Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing a safe haven for their top figures – leading to a rise in border skirmishes over recent years as Pakistani authorities try to take them out.
Security sources in Pakistan said the strikes involved air and ground strikes against Taliban posts, headquarters and ammunition depots along the border.
A Reuters news agency witness in Kabul said many ambulance sirens could be heard following a series of loud blasts.
Both sides reported heavy losses, issuing sharply differing figures that have not been independently verified.
Asia correspondent
Pakistan says it’s run out of patience and it’s now open war with Afghanistan after conflict between the two escalated overnight.
It’s a big moment after months of tension between the neighbours.
So what’s happened and why are we here?
Tensions between the two have been intensifying for months with deadly border clashes killing dozens of civilians, soldiers and militants.
And militant violence in Pakistan has surged – last year was the deadliest in a decade. The Pakistani government blame a lot of the attacks on the Pakistani Taliban.
They say that Kabul is enabling them – Kabul denies that .
There was a ceasefire mediated by Qatar back in October but that feels pretty shaky right now and several rounds of peace talks in November didn’t lead to any kind of formal agreement.
Here we are with both sides of the border on high alert – it certainly feels like a very sensitive, very fragile point.
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 eight Afghan soldiers were killed and 11 wounded. The ministry also said it destroyed 19 Pakistani army posts and two bases and that the fighting ended around midnight, about four hours after it began on Thursday.
Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar said two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three wounded.
He added that the Pakistani Taliban had sought to use drones to launch attacks on targets within Pakistan – but they were brought down by anti-drone systems.
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Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied any Pakistani soldiers had been captured.
In a post on X, he said at least 133 Afghan fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded. He also said 27 Afghan posts were destroyed and nine fighters captured.
He did not specify where the casualties occurred but said additional losses were estimated in strikes on military targets in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar.
Cross-border battles have intensified following months of tensions and skirmishes between the two nations.
The escalation threatens a fragile ceasefire along the 1,615-mile border and deepens a dispute over Islamabad’s claim that Kabul harbours Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants – an accusation the Taliban deny.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote on X: “The UK is deeply concerned by the significant escalation in tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We urge both sides to take immediate steps toward de‑escalation, avoid further harm to civilians, and re‑engage in mediated dialogue.”
