Pakistan and Afghanistan claim dozens of soldiers from the other side have been killed in relentless fighting.

Islamabad — Pakistani and Afghan forces launched multiple attacks on each other in cross-border clashes on Friday and each side claimed to have killed dozens of enemy troops in the deadliest fighting yet between the two neighbors – a conflict that Islamabad has declared an “open war”.

Repeated appeals from the international community for restraint have had no effect as the fighting, now in its ninth day, continues unabated.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban-run government’s defense ministry said its forces “destroyed several Pakistani military posts” along the border in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kunar, Paktia and Khost provinces, killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistani state media said the country’s air force and ground forces had suffered heavy losses in recent attacks targeting Afghan forces and the Pakistani Taliban – a militant group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

Islamabad said without elaborating that the fighting was ongoing and that the military had “inflicted heavy losses” on Afghanistan.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban government of harboring the TTP in the Afghan capital, a charge Kabul denies. After the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the TTP has increased its attacks inside Pakistan.

Islamabad has said its military operations, which began last week, will continue until Afghanistan takes verifiable steps to control the TTP and other militants from its territory.

The UN mission in Afghanistan has called for an end to the fighting, saying it will worsen Afghanistan’s already dire humanitarian situation. On Friday, Mission X, known as UNAMA, said that so far, 56 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan.

Several people were injured when Afghan mortar shells fell on a village in Mohmand in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, local official Mohammad Asif said.

Accident claims vary widely. This week, Afghanistan said its forces had killed 150 Pakistani soldiers since the war began, while 28 Afghan soldiers were killed.

On Friday, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s military had killed 527 Afghan soldiers in X.

The border region, where militants such as al-Qaeda and Islamic State are active, is largely inaccessible to the media, and The Associated Press has been unable to independently verify conflicting claims.

It is unclear whether efforts by other Muslim countries will get Kabul and Islamabad to the negotiating table anytime soon.

On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to mediate a new ceasefire in a call with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

And a day later, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim spoke with Afghan Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The ongoing clashes ended a previous ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October, bringing the two neighbors close to war again. The deal, signed in Qatar at the time, followed six days of talks in Istanbul, which led to an agreement to extend the deal and hold a third round of talks in November.

___

Afghan reported from Kabul. Associated Press writers Riyaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Ishtak Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan contributed to this report.