Islamabad (Pakistan) (AFP) - Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan including the capital Kabul on Friday, with Islamabad’s defence minister declaring the neighbours at “open war” following months of tit-for-tat clashes.

AFP reporters in Kabul and Kandahar heard blasts and jets overhead until dawn, as Pakistan launched air strikes on the Afghan capital and the southern power base of the Taliban authorities.

Near the key Torkham border crossing between the two countries, an AFP journalist heard shelling from around 9:30 am (0500 GMT) on Friday, and a camp accommodating Afghans returning en masse from Pakistan was hit by the fighting overnight.

“Children, women, and old people were running,” Gander Khan, a 65-year-old returnee, told AFP in front of rows of tents at the Omari camp.

Pakistan’s latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night over earlier air strikes by Islamabad.

Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.

Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has stepped up assaults in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.

“Afghan Taliban defence targets were targeted in Kabul, Paktia (province) and Kandahar,” Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X, while defence minister Khawaja Asif declared an “all-out confrontation” with the Taliban government.

“Our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you,” he posted.

- Delicate ceasefire broken -

The overnight strikes mark a “significant and dangerous escalation from earlier clashes”, South Asia expert Michael Kugelman said on X.

“Pakistan appears to have expanded its targeting beyond TTP to the Taliban regime itself,” he said.

Several rounds of negotiations between Islamabad and Kabul followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but the efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement.

After repeated breaches of the initial truce, Saudi Arabia intervened this month, mediating the release of three Pakistani soldiers captured by Afghanistan in October.

Saudi’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, spoke on Friday with his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar, according to a statement published by Riyadh.

And Iran, which shares an eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Friday offered to help “facilitate dialogue” to resolve the conflict.

Both Afghan and Pakistani militaries said they killed dozens of soldiers in the latest round of border violence, which followed multiple strikes by Islamabad on Afghanistan and clashes along the frontier in recent months.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country’s armed forces can “have the full capability to crush any aggressive ambitions”.

- Jets overhead -

In the Afghan capital AFP journalists heard jets and multiple loud blasts, followed by gunfire, over a period of several hours.

An AFP reporter in Afghanistan’s southern city of Kandahar, where Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based, said he heard jets overhead.

Streets in Kabul were quiet after daybreak, in keeping with a Friday during Ramadan in the Muslim-majority nation, with authorities not notably increasing the presence of security forces or checkpoints.

The Taliban government confirmed the Pakistani air strikes, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying there were no casualties.

Hours earlier, Mujahid announced “large-scale offensive operations” at the border “in response to repeated violations by the Pakistani military”.

The Afghan defence ministry reported eight of its soldiers had been killed in the land offensive.

At the camp for returnees near Torkham, multiple civilians were wounded in a Pakistani strike, an Afghan official reported.

“A mortar shell has hit the camp and unfortunately seven of our refugees have been wounded, and the condition of one woman is serious,” said Qureshi Badlun, the information chief in Nangarhar province.

While the border has largely been closed since October, Afghan returnees have been allowed to cross.

- Months of border violence -

Mujahid, the Taliban government spokesman, told AFP that several Pakistani soldiers had been “caught alive”, a claim denied by the prime minister’s office in Islamabad.

The military operation follows Pakistani strikes on Nangarhar and Paktika provinces overnight into Sunday, which the UN mission in Afghanistan said killed at least 13 civilians.

Both sides also reported cross-border fire on Tuesday, but without casualties.

Besides military operations, there has been a series of deadly suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months.

They included an attack on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that killed at least 40 people and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

The militant group’s regional chapter, Islamic State-Khorasan, also claimed a deadly suicide bombing at a restaurant in Kabul last month.

burs-je/mjw