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Pakistan’s military, backed by artillery and air power, struck more military installations deep inside Afghanistan overnight and into early Saturday, killing more than 300 Afghan forces in days of border clashes, officials said.
Afghanistan on Saturday said it had downed a Pakistani fighter jet and captured its pilot on Saturday, a claim quickly denied by Islamabad. The Afghan military and police said the aircraft was shot down in the eastern city of Jalalabad, but Pakistan’s foreign ministry dismissed the claims.
Jalalabad residents said they saw a person parachute from the plane before being detained. The pilot was “captured alive”, according to Jalalabad’s police spokesman Tayeb Hammad and the military spokesman in eastern Afghanistan, Wahidullah Mohammadi.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Friday that Afghan forces had killed 55 Pakistani soldiers and captured several others. Casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.
Pakistan launched air strikes in several cities and provinces on Friday, including the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, where the Afghan Taliban’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based.
This week’s escalation marked the first time that Pakistan has focused its air strikes on Afghan government facilities, analysts noted, a stark change from previous operations that it said targeted militants.
Relations between the neighbours have frayed in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides.
Read morePakistan-Afghanistan ‘open war’: How and why we got here?
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.
Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group that has stepped up assaults in Pakistan since 2021.
The United States voiced its diplomatic support for Pakistan, which has refused to halt its pressure campaign on the Taliban government that Islamabad accuses of backing militant groups.
The United States “expressed support for Pakistan’s right to defend itself against Taliban attacks”, said Allison Hooker, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, in a post on X after talks with her Pakistani counterpart.
A spokesman for the Taliban called for “dialogue” to resolve a previously simmering conflict that Pakistan’s defence minister said on Friday was now an “open war”.
An AFP journalist heard a jet flying over Jalalabad on Saturday followed by the sound of two explosions from the direction of the Afghan city’s airport.
The defence ministry in Kabul has also said it carried out air strikes on Pakistani territory over the past two days, which observers said could have been drones.
‘Effective response’
“Pakistan’s immediate and effective response to aggression continues,” Mosharraf Zaidi, a spokesman for Pakistan’s prime minister, posted on X late on Friday.
The European Union called for “immediate de-escalation and a halt of hostilities”, adding in a statement by policy chief Kaja Kallas that “Afghan territory must not be used to threaten or attack other countries”.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged in efforts to halt the fighting while China said it was working with both countries and called for calm.
Pakistan’s Zaidi told AFP on Saturday that gunmen he said were associated with the Pakistani Taliban had attacked a checkpoint in the northwest. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Several rounds of negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan last year followed a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey. Those efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement.
Saudi Arabia intervened this month after repeated breaches of the initial truce, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
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