The conflict has displaced about 115,000 people inside Afghanistan and roughly 3,000 in Pakistan, according to the U.N. refugee agency, while the U.N. mission in Afghanistan reported at least 56 civilians killed inside that country. Casualty figures from both governments diverge sharply and could not be independently verified. Mediation efforts by Turkey and Malaysia have not yet produced a new ceasefire.
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged multiple strikes across their shared border on Friday, each side claiming to have killed dozens of the other’s troops, as fighting that Islamabad has declared an “open war” entered its ninth consecutive day with no sign of abating.
Repeated appeals from the international community for restraint have had no effect. The U.N. refugee agency said the clashes have so far displaced about 115,000 people inside Afghanistan and roughly 3,000 in Pakistan. The U.N. mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, said Friday that at least 56 civilians have been killed inside Afghanistan since the fighting began.
Also on Friday, a suicide car bomber struck a security post in North Waziristan, a district bordering Afghanistan. One civilian was killed and 18 were wounded, several of them seriously, local doctor Mohammad Asif said. No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban — also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — which frequently targets Pakistani forces and civilians in the region.
Competing casualty claims, unverifiable figures
Afghanistan’s Taliban-run Defense Ministry said Friday its forces “destroyed numerous Pakistani military posts” along the border in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Kunar, Paktia, and Khost provinces, killing dozens of Pakistani soldiers. Pakistani state-run media reported that the country’s air force and ground troops “inflicted heavy losses” in their latest strikes targeting Afghan forces and the TTP, without providing specifics.
The governments’ casualty figures diverge sharply. Earlier in the week, Afghanistan said its forces had killed 150 Pakistani soldiers since the fighting began while 28 Afghan troops were killed. Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Friday on X that Pakistan’s military has killed 527 Afghan soldiers.
The border region is largely inaccessible to the media, and the Associated Press said it could not independently verify the conflicting claims.
Afghan mortar shells also landed Friday in a village in Mohmand, a district in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, injuring several people, local official Mohammad Asif said.
The underlying dispute
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Taliban government in Kabul of harboring the TTP — a charge the Afghan government denies. Pakistan has said its military operations, which began last week, will continue until Afghanistan takes verifiable steps to rein in the TTP and other militant groups operating from its territory. Since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the TTP has stepped up attacks inside Pakistan. The border region is also home to militants affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
Mediation efforts have not produced a ceasefire
The current fighting ended an earlier ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October, which was followed by six days of talks in Istanbul and an agreement to extend the truce and hold a third round of negotiations in November.
Multiple Muslim nations have since sought to restart diplomacy. On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to mediate a new ceasefire in a call with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim spoke with Afghanistan’s Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund, according to Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Whether either contact would bring the two governments to the negotiating table remained unclear as of Friday.