PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan declared “open war” on Afghanistan on Friday after the two South Asian neighbors traded overnight attacks in a sharp escalation of their long-running dispute.
Both sides have claimed heavy casualties in renewed fighting that threatens to further destabilize the region, where terrorist groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda are trying to regroup.
Tensions between the two countries, which share a 1,600-mile border, have simmered for months as they struggle to maintain a Qatar-brokered ceasefire reached in October, with occasional cross-border skirmishes.
Pakistan, which has been struggling with a surge in militant attacks since the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, says the attackers are using Afghanistan as a base. The Taliban, which seized power as the US withdrew, denies harboring militants.
The latest violence began on Thursday night with what the Taliban called a reprisal attack on military bases in northwest Pakistan.
Heavy fighting began around 8 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET), according to residents and government and military officials in Pakistan’s border areas.
“We had to leave our homes in the middle of the night,” tribal Dilbar Khan Afridi told NBC News as he fled the mountainous Tira Valley in Khyber district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as Afghan forces fired rockets and mortar shells from across the border.
Hours later, Pakistan said it had hit military targets in the Afghan capital Kabul and Kandahar and Paktia provinces in response to what it called “unprovoked Afghan attacks”.
The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for a deadly attack carried out by Pakistan on Sunday in the border areas of Afghanistan. Pakistan said those attacks targeted militants and killed at least 70, while Afghanistan said dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed.
After regaining power in 2021, the Taliban has turned Afghanistan into a “proxy of India” – Pakistan’s archrival and a meeting place for militants who have started “exporting terrorism”, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on Friday.
“Our cup of patience has overflowed,” said Asif at X. “Now it is open war between us and you.”
There were conflicting claims from both sides on Friday about the damage and casualties they inflicted on each other.
Pakistani military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhary later told reporters that at least 12 Pakistani soldiers had been killed and 274 Taliban officers and militants had been killed since Thursday night, Reuters reported. He did not specify where the casualties occurred, and NBC News could not independently verify the claim.
He said that the operation is continuing on the direction of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Eight Taliban fighters were killed and 11 wounded in Nangarhar province, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
He said 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed in Afghanistan’s previous attack on Pakistan, some of whose bodies were taken to Afghanistan and others were captured alive. Nineteen Pakistani army posts were captured, he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged both sides to protect civilians and “continue to try to resolve any differences through diplomacy,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad also called for a peaceful resolution. Pakistan and Afghanistan have yet to reach a formal agreement after several rounds of peace talks failed in November following an October ceasefire.
“It’s a terrible dynamic that has to stop,” Khalilzad said at X. “Innocent Afghans and Pakistanis are injured or dying.”
Russia, the only country that officially recognizes Afghanistan’s Taliban government, and has good relations with Pakistan, has called for an end to the fighting. “Like everyone else, we are monitoring this situation closely,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The latest attacks are a “dangerous escalation” that takes the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan “into uncharted territory,” said Abdul Basit, senior fellow at the International Center for Research on Political Violence and Terrorism at Nanyang Technological University’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Frustrated by Afghanistan’s refusal to repudiate the Afghan Taliban, or TTP — which Pakistan blames for much of the violence, which is separate but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban — Pakistan is now attacking not only border areas but cities, not just the militants, but the Taliban government that is protecting them.
Basit said the recent attacks had brought the conflict to a new level, and any escalation would be temporary “unless a miracle happens”.
Basit said that since the Taliban lacks conventional capabilities such as air force or missiles, that means sending proxies as suicide bombers into Pakistani cities as late winter makes for a peak period for attacks.
“I think early 2026 summer is here and we’re looking at a bloody summer,” he said.
Basit said the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has ramifications beyond the region. Tensions between the two countries will strengthen global terror groups like Al Qaeda and Islamic State, and they are unlikely to limit their attacks to South Asia.
“If they get stronger, it will undermine US homeland security,” he said.
