By MUNIR AHMED and ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan forces attacked Pakistani military positions along the border early on Tuesday, triggering intense clashes that left 67 Afghan troops and one Pakistani soldier dead, officials in Islamabad said as cross-border fighting between the two countries entered its fifth day.
The Taliban defense ministry in Kabul, the Afghan capital, rejected Pakistan’s claim. A ministry spokesman said Afghan forces in the past 24 hours repelled Pakistani attacks, destroying about a dozen military posts and killing four Pakistani soldiers.
The latest Afghan-Pakistan escalation erupted last week with Afghanistan launching attacks on Thursday in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous weekend. Since then, Pakistan has carried out operations along the border and declared it was in an “open war” with Afghanistan, alarming the international community.
On Tuesday, Pakistan said Afghan forces attacked Pakistan’s military in two sections of the two countries’ border.
It said 16 locations were attacked along the southern part of the border, in the southwestern districts of Qilla Saifullah, Nushki and Chaman in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Pakistani troops killed 27 members of the Afghan forces there and “successfully repelled these multiple attacks,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said.
Tarar said on X that another wave of attacks hit 25 locations along the northern part of the border, in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Pakistani troops killed 40 members of the Afghan security forces. The spokesman did not say where the Pakistani soldier was killed.
In Kabul, defense ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khawarazmi slammed the Islamabad statements as “baseless.”
The border area — where militant groups, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, are also active — is not accessible to the media and the Associated Press could not independently confirm any casualty reports.
In past escalations and cross-border exchanges of fire, Pakistan and Afghanistan have both repeatedly claimed to inflicting heavy losses on the other side.
In the five days of fighting, Tarar said Pakistani forces have so far killed 464 Afghan security force members and injured 665. Khawarazmi said in a statement that so far, 28 Afghan soldiers have died and 42 others have been wounded in the fighting.
Islamabad has long accused Kabul of providing a safe haven to militants fighting the Pakistani government — charges that Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies.
Khawarazmi reiterated that stand on Tuesday. “I repeat once again that we will not allow any person or group to use our territory against other countries,” he said.
Separately, Hamdullah Fitrat, the Afghan government’s deputy spokesman, accused Pakistan of violating Afghan airspace and targeting homes, mosques, religious schools or madrasas and other civilian targets in Kabul, Laghman, Nangarhar, Paktia, Kandahar and Kunar provinces, as well as targeting refugee camps.
He said these attacks have resulted in the death of 110 civilians, including 65 women and children.
Fitrat said the Taliban government of Afghanistan considers its “legitimate right” to protect their people and will “fight against the enemy … until this aggression is stopped.”
Meanwhile, the U.N. mission in Kabul called for an immediate halt to the fighting, warning that the conflict is worsening Afghanistan’s dire humanitarian situation. According to its preliminary figures, since last Thursday, at least 42 civilians have been killed and 104 injured, including women and children.
On Monday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari defended the ongoing fighting with Afghanistan, saying Islamabad had tried all forms of diplomacy before targeting militants operating from Afghan territory.
He asked Kabul to disarm groups responsible for attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistan has experienced a surge in violence in recent months, which it blames on the outlawed Pakistani Taliban — known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. Islamabad says the TTP operates from Afghan territory and have the protection of Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Kabul denies the accusations.
The latest fighting has ended a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October. Talks in Istanbul failed to produce a permanent agreement, and Pakistan has said that operations will continue until Afghanistan takes verifiable steps to rein in the TTP and other militants.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban and since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the TTP has become emboldened and escalated its attacks in Pakistan.
Abdul Qahar Afghan reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
