Pakistan vs Taliban: War Declaration – NRK Urix

– Our patience has reached its limit. Now there is open war between us and you, writes Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on X.

The announcement came late Friday night after Pakistani forces had earlier in the night attacked Afghanistan’s capital Kabul and several other cities.

Explosions were heard from 1.50 on the night of Friday, followed by the sound of fighter jets, reports the AFP news agency.

A resident of the capital says that up to eight explosions were heard.

– The first two explosions were further away from us. The last ones were close to us and shook the house. Fighter jets could be heard after each explosion, says the resident, who will not be named for security reasons.

AFP journalists in the center of Kabul heard the sound of gunfire after the explosions, until 2:30 a.m. on Friday night. The news agency states that the attack lasted over two hours.

– An appropriate response

Later that night, Pakistan confirmed it was behind the attack, as well as targeting targets in Kandahar and Paktia province.

– Afghan Taliban defense targets were hit in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar, said a statement from Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on X.

An AFP journalist in Kandahar, a city located in southern Afghanistan and home to Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, says he heard warplanes overhead.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi calls the attacks against Afghanistan “an appropriate response”.

“Pakistan’s armed forces have given a befitting response to the Afghan Taliban’s open aggression,” Naqvi said, referring to an attack carried out by Afghan forces against Pakistani border troops on Thursday evening.

– The last thing we need

– An extensive war here, in addition to the wars going on in the world, is one of the last things we need, says Elisabeth Eide, professor emerita at OsloMet, and co-author together with Terje Skaufjord of several books about the region.

Recently, there have been several serious terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Now Pakistan is blaming Afghanistan for hiding the terrorist organization TTP.

The TTP has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks.

– This “foreign hand syndrome”, where the countries in the region blame each other when internal attacks occur, is a fairly common practice, she says to NRK.

Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide (Ap) is concerned about the escalation of the conflict. He encourages political conversations.

– We encourage the parties to show restraint, and the Taliban regime to refrain from supporting violent groups inside Pakistan. Political talks should now be held to avoid further escalation of the conflict.

Iran will help

Iran offers help in “facilitating dialogue” between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

– Iran stands ready to offer any kind of necessary assistance that can facilitate dialogue and that can promote understanding and cooperation between the two countries, writes Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in a post on X on Friday morning.

Professor Eide hopes that peace mediation will be possible.

– An extensive war here, in addition to the wars going on in the world, is one of the last things we need.

She is skeptical that Iran offers to contribute to the dialogue between the parties, while they themselves are under pressure from the United States.

– I think that will hardly be anything particularly constructive.

– Can we expect a long conflict?

– Pakistan says this is an “open war”. The question is what scale. Whether this is a short-term marking, and not the start of a further escalation, remains to be seen.

– But the hope is that it will not escalate. This is a region of great tension. India recently received the first Afghan diplomat, Pakistan now accuses India of supporting the Taliban. And an escalation of the rhetoric between these two nuclear powers does not bode well.

Afghanistan resumes attacks

The Taliban government said on Thursday evening that Afghan forces had attacked Pakistani forces on the border between the two countries, in retaliation for Pakistani air strikes on Afghanistan overnight on Sunday.

After Pakistan’s latest attack against Afghanistan on Friday night, the Taliban government stated that Afghan forces have resumed attacks against Pakistani border forces.

– After airstrikes in Kabul, Kandahar and other provinces, extensive retaliatory actions have once again been launched against Pakistani soldiers’ positions, said Taliban government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid on Friday night.

He said that no one has been reported killed in the Pakistani airstrikes.

The UN chief is worried

The two countries accuse each other of escalating the conflict.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres says he is “following the reports of clashes across the border with concern”.

The statement, which his spokesman Stéphane Dujarric has sent out, also states that “the Secretary-General encourages the parties to continue to resolve any disagreement diplomatically”.

Staggering numbers

The Taliban government said a few hours before the Pakistani attack on Kabul that Afghan forces had attacked Pakistani forces on the border.

It was a “large-scale offensive” on the border “in response to repeated border violations by the Pakistani military”, the Taliban spokesman said on Thursday evening.

He justified the border attacks by the fact that Pakistan carried out deadly airstrikes against Afghanistan on the night of Sunday. The border attacks are retaliation for this, he said.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense has said that eight Afghan soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the clash on the border on Thursday night.

Furthermore, 55 Pakistani soldiers have been killed, the bodies of some of them have been transported into Afghanistan, and “several others have been captured”, according to the ministry in Kabul.