In a dramatic surge of hostilities along the contentious Durand Line, Afghan Defense Ministry officials reported that Taliban-led troops have overrun several Pakistani military checkpoints in the restive provinces of Kunar and Helmand, intensifying a cycle of cross-border skirmishes that has claimed at least five Pakistani lives.
The clashes erupted amid reports of heavy gunfire and exchanges in multiple hotspots, including the Shakij, Bibi Jani, and Salehan sectors of Bahramcha district, as well as Aryub Zazi in Paktia province. Local accounts relayed to TOLOnews described relentless combat spilling into nearby zones like Spina Shaga, Giwi, and Mani Jabha, with echoes of battle resounding across the frontier.
An official from Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry stated that Taliban forces had seized multiple outposts from Pakistani troops along the Durand Line in these areas, with confrontations persisting into the night. The ministry further asserted that retaliatory strikes had demolished one Pakistani outpost each in Kunar and Helmand, inflicting casualties on the opposing side and resulting in the loss of weapons and vehicles.
This flare-up follows closely on the heels of an alleged Pakistani airstrike in the vicinity of Kabul, which the Afghan 201 Khalid bin Walid Army Corps labeled as the catalyst for counteroffensives against military sites in Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. Sources speaking to TOLOnews confirmed that at least five Pakistani soldiers died and two were wounded in the fray.
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The violence has since broadened, with simultaneous engagements reported in Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Kunar, Helmand, and Nangarhar—provinces that straddle the porous 2,640-kilometer boundary etched in 1893 and rejected by Kabul as an arbitrary colonial relic. Pakistani authorities in Islamabad have remained silent so far, offering no immediate response to the Afghan claims.
Experts view this as among the fiercest border confrontations since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover in Kabul, underscoring the deep-seated frictions between the neighbors. Long plagued by territorial disagreements and reciprocal allegations of sheltering insurgents, the two nations’ relations teeter on a knife’s edge, raising fears of further destabilization in an already turbulent region.
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