Afghan military and police officials said a Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in Jalalabad on February 28 and that the pilot was captured alive, adding a new flashpoint to already tense border fighting between the two countries.
Police spokesman Tayeb Hammad said the aircraft was shot down in the sixth district of Jalalabad city. Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesman for the military in eastern Afghanistan, said Afghan forces brought the jet down and captured the pilot alive. Residents told AFP they saw the pilot parachute from the aircraft before he was detained.
The report came as fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban forces entered its third day, with exchanges of fire continuing overnight. Pakistani strikes on the previous day had hit Taliban installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar, according to officials cited in the report.
The incident in Jalalabad matters because it moves the confrontation beyond ground fire and into a more dangerous phase involving aircraft. Pakistan has a much stronger military and air force than Afghanistan, while the Taliban relies heavily on ground forces and light weapons. Even so, the group is battle-hardened after two decades of insurgency before taking power in 2021.
Diplomatic pressure was also building. The European Union called on both sides to de-escalate and enter talks, while the United Nations urged an immediate end to hostilities. Russia and China also pressed for restraint. A State Department spokesperson said the United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against Taliban attacks.
Pakistan said it had launched an operation it called “Ghazab Lil Haq,” while security sources claimed multiple Taliban posts and camps had been destroyed. Reuters said it could not independently verify those battlefield claims. Both sides also issued sharply different casualty counts that could not be confirmed.
Pakistan’s defense minister called the fighting “open war” and warned that further attacks would draw a response. Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani warned the conflict would be “very costly,” while insisting Afghan forces had not deployed broadly beyond those already engaged.
The downing of the jet, if confirmed in more detail, would be one of the clearest signs yet that the border clashes are broadening and that both sides are willing to test one another’s air and ground capabilities. For now, the only uncontested point is that the confrontation has already grown into the kind of cross-border exchange regional diplomats have been trying to prevent.
The risk is not only military. A sustained cycle of retaliation could complicate negotiations, widen civilian exposure along the frontier, and make an eventual ceasefire harder to secure.
