The “open war” between Pakistan and Taliban controlled Afghanistan reached its fourth consecutive day of fighting on Monday after the Taliban government announced they were carrying out an offensive campaign against Pakistani military bases along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Thursday night.
The current fighting marks the latest episode of escalation between the two Muslim states after weeks of escalating tensions.
Pakistan quickly responded with “Operation Ghazb lil Haq” ("Operation Wrath for Truth"), conducting airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities, Kandahar and the Afghan capital of Kabul. Following the strikes, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said, “Our patience has run out. Now there will be open war.”
Both sides have announced conflicting casualty estimates that The Jerusalem Post has been unable to independently verify.
The current fighting is the most significant escalation between the two Muslim countries since the Taliban re-established control of Afghanistan back in 2021.
The war thus far
Taliban officials announced on Thursday that they had begun offensive military operations along their border with Pakistan in the provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar, Khost, and Paktika, according to reporting from the BBC.
The Taliban claimed it had struck military targets, including a Pakistani Air Force base in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which prompted an "immediate and effective response" from the Islamabad security forces.
“Afghan Taliban miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations,” Pakistan’s Information Ministry stated in a post on X/Twitter as it launched retaliatory airstrikes across Afghanistan, including in Kabul and several border provinces, on Friday morning.
The Afghan Taliban spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, posted a statement on X that the Afghan forces had launched strikes on the Pakistani military currently occupying positions in Kandahar and Helmand of southern Afghanistan, historically known as the heartland of the Taliban movement, according to reports from the BBC. Mujahid later deleted the post.
Islamabad has declared that Pakistani forces are still holding a 32 square-kilometer position in the Ghudwana Enclave in the Zhob sector of Southeastern Afghanistan, an area known as a key strategic zone of the Afghan Taliban as of Sunday, March 1, according to statements from two Pakistani security officials.