Afghanistan has said it had thwarted Pakistan’s attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, as cross-border fighting between the two countries dragged on for a fourth day.
Months of fighting have erupted again since Thursday, when Afghanistan launched attacks along the border and Pakistani forces responded from the border and from the sky. Pakistan has declared that it is in “open war” with Afghanistan.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military aircraft entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram air base” around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “air and missile defense systems” and managed to thwart the attack. There was no immediate response to Pakistan’s claim.
Diplomatic efforts have failed to secure a truce, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among those involved in efforts to stop the fighting.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly because other militant groups in the area, including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, still have a presence and have been trying to re-emerge.
Islamabad has accused Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that have been carrying out attacks in Pakistan, something the Taliban government has rejected.
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.
Pakistan acknowledged bombing key cities on Friday, including Kabul and Kandahar, where Afghanistan’s supreme leader resides.
There was a greater presence of security forces in Kabul on Sunday, with more checkpoints than usual in the city center.
Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani fire had killed 36 civilians in several provinces since Thursday, on which Islamabad had no comment. Several residents in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Nangarhar told AFP that the two sides were involved in sporadic clashes on Sunday afternoon.
At the Torkham border crossing, a key gateway for Afghans returning from Pakistan, the information department of Nangarhar province reported night fighting.
The spokesman for a military unit reported heavy fighting overnight in Paktia province. Afghan officials said Thursday’s border offensive was a response to earlier airstrikes that killed civilians, which Pakistan said targeted militants.
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.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said 46 locations across Afghanistan had been hit by airstrikes since its operation began. Pakistan has killed 415 Afghan soldiers, the minister claimed. Islamabad had earlier said 12 of its soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said more than 80 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 27 military posts were captured. Previously, the Afghan government had estimated the death toll among its troops at 13.
Victim claims from both sides are difficult to independently verify.
The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
