Heavy Clashes Along Pak-Afghan Border, Then A Taliban Warning

Afghanistan's Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday.

On Thursday, two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and another in the southeast of the country. The following day, the Taliban-run defence ministry blamed the attacks on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of violating its sovereignty.

"In retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul," Taliban forces are engaged " in heavy clashes against Pakistani security forces in various areas" along the border, the Afghan military said in a statement.

Later, Taliban defence ministry spokesman Enayat Khowarazm told AFP the "successful" operations had ended at midnight.

But he warned: "If the opposing side violates Afghanistan's territory again, our armed forces are ready to defend their territory and will respond firmly."

Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind Thursday's attacks, but called on Kabul "to stop harbouring the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil." 

The TTP, trained in combat in Afghanistan and claiming to share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, is accused by Islamabad of having killed hundreds of its soldiers since 2021. 

Taliban officials from Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost, and Helmand provinces -- all located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan -- confirmed that clashes were ongoing.

"This evening, Taliban forces began using weapons. We fired first light and then heavy artillery at four points along the border," a senior official in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, told AFP. 

"Pakistani forces responded with heavy fire and shot down three Afghan quadcopters suspected of carrying explosives. Intense fighting continues, but so far, no casualties have been reported," he continued. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on his country's neighbours "to exercise restraint".

Uptick in violence

In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence -- largely directed at security forces.

Earlier this year, a UN report said the TTP "receive substantial logistical and operational support from the de facto authorities", referring to the Taliban government in Kabul.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament on Thursday that several efforts to convince the Afghan Taliban to stop backing the TTP had failed.

"We will not tolerate this any longer," Asif said. "United, we must respond to those facilitating them, whether the hideouts are on our soil or Afghan soil."

Earlier Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several districts in northwest Pakistan that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)