An explosion followed by successive gunshots was heard in central Kabul on Sunday, AFP journalists reported, and the Taliban government claimed that Afghan forces were firing on a new incursion by Pakistani aircraft.
Months of cross-border clashes have erupted since Thursday, when Afghanistan launched an offensive along the border, with Pakistani forces responding to the attack from the border and from the sky.
“Anti-aircraft fire is being directed at Pakistani aircraft in Kabul,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Sunday, referring to the gunfire overhead.
Pakistan acknowledged bombing key cities on Friday, including Kabul and Kandahar, where Afghanistan’s supreme leader resides.
Afghan authorities have accused Pakistan of killing civilians in multiple attacks, on which Islamabad has not commented.
In rural southern Kandahar, construction workers said they were hit Sunday by two airstrikes that the site manager said killed three people.
“Everything went dark before our eyes,” said Enamullah, 20, who gave only one name. “I came from Kabul just to earn a piece of bread.”
Afghan officials said Thursday’s border offensive was a response to earlier airstrikes that killed civilians and that Pakistan said targeted militants.
In addition to the dead in Kandahar, deputy Afghan government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani fire has killed 30 civilians in the eastern provinces of Khost, Kunar and Paktika since Thursday.
Victim claims from both sides are difficult to independently verify.
Read morePakistan says more than 300 Afghan forces killed as cross-border attacks intensify
“Everyone just left”
On the road between Kabul, the Afghan capital, and the border, an AFP journalist in Jalalabad heard a plane and two explosions on Saturday. Afghan security forces said they had shot down a Pakistani fighter jet and captured its pilot, which Islamabad denied as “completely false.”
On Saturday, residents of Paktika told AFP that exchanges of fire were taking place, while in Khost some people had fled their homes near the border.
“The shelling started, children, women, everyone came out,” said Mohammad Rasool, 63, who had arrived in another district.
“Some didn’t have shoes, others didn’t wear veils,” she told AFP.
Diplomatic efforts have failed to secure a truce, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged in efforts to stop the fighting. China said it was “working with” both countries and called for calm.
The United States supported “Pakistan’s right to defend itself against Taliban attacks,” Allison Hooker, undersecretary of state for political affairs, wrote in X after talks with her Pakistani counterpart.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups carrying out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government rejects.
Many attacks have been claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has intensified attacks in Pakistan since 2021, the year Taliban authorities returned to power in Kabul.
This week’s escalation marked the first time that Pakistan focused its airstrikes on Afghan government facilities, analysts noted, a radical change from previous operations that it said targeted militants.
Mosharraf Zaidi, a spokesman for the Pakistani prime minister, told AFP that gunmen he said were associated with the Pakistani Taliban had attacked a checkpoint in the northwest. No one immediately claimed responsibility for that attack.
“Pakistan’s immediate and effective response to the aggression continues,” Zaidi said on Friday, putting the death toll at nearly 300 Afghan soldiers and militants.
Read more‘Open war’ Pakistan-Afghanistan: How and why did we get here?
‘Open war’
Pakistan’s information minister said on Saturday that 37 locations in Afghanistan had been hit by airstrikes since its operation began.
Islamabad earlier said 12 of its soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat, Afghanistan’s deputy spokesman, said more than 80 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 27 military posts captured.
Previously, the Afghan government had estimated the death toll among its troops at 13.
The Defense Ministry in Kabul also said it carried out airstrikes on Pakistani territory over the past two days, which observers said could have been drones.
Islamabad declared an “open war” against the Taliban authorities on Friday, while the Afghan government called for a “dialogue” to resolve the conflict.
This month’s violence is the worst since October, with fighting killing more than 70 people on both sides, and since then land borders between the neighbors have been virtually closed.
Several rounds of negotiations between Pakistan and Afghanistan last year followed a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Türkiye.
Saudi Arabia intervened this month after repeated violations of the initial truce, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
