Pakistan has declared "open war" on Afghanistan, launching airstrikes on Kabul and other major Afghan cities on Friday (February 27) in a dramatic escalation of cross-border conflict between the two neighboring nations.

Pakistani warplanes struck Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia province in the early morning hours, hitting what Islamabad described as military installations. The strikes came hours after Afghan Taliban forces launched their own cross-border attacks on Pakistani military positions late Thursday (February 26), which Afghanistan said was retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas the previous Sunday.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif made the announcement in a post on X, writing: "Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us." Asif said Pakistan had exhausted all diplomatic options, adding: "Pakistan made every effort to keep the situation normal through direct means and through friendly countries. Our cup of patience has overflowed."

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also issued a statement, saying Pakistan's armed forces were "fully prepared to safeguard the nation's security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity," adding there would be "no leniency in defending our beloved homeland."

The two sides have offered sharply different casualty figures. Pakistan's military says it killed 274 Afghan Taliban fighters and wounded more than 400, while losing 12 soldiers of its own, with 27 more wounded and one missing. Afghanistan's government puts the Pakistani death toll at 55 soldiers, claiming some of their bodies were taken into Afghan territory and that others were "captured alive." Afghanistan says eight of its own soldiers were killed and 11 wounded.

Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistani strikes hit "innocent citizens, children, and women," including a farmer's home in Jalalabad that killed most of his family and a religious school for children in Paktika province. Despite those charges, Mujahid said Afghanistan still sought a peaceful end to the fighting. "We have repeatedly emphasised a peaceful solution, and still want the problem to be resolved through dialogue," he said.

The Guardian reported that witnesses in Kabul and Kandahar described explosions and jets flying overhead until dawn. One Kabul resident, speaking anonymously out of fear of Taliban reprisals, said: "It is clear even after the withdrawal of American forces, the war never ends in Afghanistan. We just need to live in peace. Sadly, the civilians always suffer anywhere, particularly in Afghanistan."

Fighting was also reported along the Torkham border crossing in the eastern Nangarhar province on Friday morning, where Pakistani mortar fire was said to have struck a refugee camp that had been evacuated overnight.

Pakistan's information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said anti-drone systems shot down several small drones over the northwestern Pakistani cities of Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera. Tarar called the drone attacks evidence of "direct linkages between the Afghan Taliban regime and terrorism in Pakistan."

The current conflict is rooted in a long-running dispute over militant activity along the countries' shared 1,622-mile border — known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has never formally recognized. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan's Taliban government of sheltering the Pakistani Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and Baloch separatist groups who stage attacks inside Pakistan. Both the TTP and Kabul deny the charge.

Asif also accused the Taliban of turning Afghanistan into "a colony of India," citing improving ties between Kabul and New Delhi as a source of Pakistani alarm. India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars and engaged in repeated military clashes since both nations gained independence in 1947.

The international community is pushing for a halt to hostilities. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides to protect civilians and "to continue to seek to resolve any differences through diplomacy." Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held separate phone calls with his Pakistani, Afghan, Qatari, and Saudi counterparts to discuss the crisis. Russia called for an immediate ceasefire, with President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, offering Moscow's services as a mediator. Iran's foreign minister also urged dialogue during the holy month of Ramadan.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad described the tit-for-tat attacks as a "terrible dynamic that must stop," calling instead for a monitored diplomatic agreement between the two countries.

The two countries reached a Qatari-mediated ceasefire after deadly border clashes in October 2025, but several rounds of peace talks in Istanbul in November failed to produce a lasting agreement. As of Friday (February 27), Pakistani military operations were continuing "on the directions of the prime minister," according to a military statement, with no ceasefire in sight.

Bob Lonsberry