Taliban say they hit points beyond the border
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense says Taliban forces targeted “several points” beyond the line that Kabul calls the “hypothetical line,” a phrase Afghan authorities use for the disputed border with Pakistan. The announcement followed Pakistani air strikes inside Afghanistan earlier in the week and came with no detailed casualty count or location list.
The wording mattered. Afghan officials did not explicitly name Pakistan in the statement, but ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi made clear that the strikes were carried out on the other side of the line Afghanistan does not recognise. That long-running dispute over the Durand Line has shaped relations between the two countries for decades and makes almost any cross-border confrontation politically charged before a single shot is fired.
The latest exchange fits into a broader cycle of retaliation. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mainly women and children, in air strikes near the border this week. Islamabad said it had hit hideouts of fighters along the frontier, while Afghan authorities had already warned they would respond. On the ground, sporadic clashes with heavy weaponry reportedly erupted overnight between border forces in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Afghanistan’s Khost province.
Neither the Pakistani military’s public relations wing nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately responded to requests for comment, and as of Saturday afternoon Al Jazeera reported no official Pakistani response to the Afghan statement. A security source told AFP that at least one Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed and seven others wounded in the exchanges.
The tension has been building around the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which Pakistan says has launched attacks from Afghan soil. The Taliban deny that charge. Last week, the TTP claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border that Pakistan said killed 16 soldiers. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that Islamabad wanted good relations with Afghanistan but insisted the TTP must be stopped from killing Pakistani civilians.
That is the strategic problem both governments face. Pakistan had hoped the Taliban’s 2021 takeover would produce a friendlier relationship and greater control over militancy. Instead, violence has increased and trust has eroded. Al Jazeera noted that more than 950 Pakistanis, including security personnel and civilians, have been killed in 2024 alone. The latest strike announcement will likely deepen pressure on both sides to show strength, even as it makes the prospect of de-escalation more remote.
