Tensions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border escalated dramatically on Friday morning (February 27, 2026) when Pakistani air forces carried out airstrikes targeting locations in three Afghan provinces: Kabul (the capital), Kandahar, and Paktia.
Kabul 24: Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, confirmed the attacks, stating that certain areas in these provinces were bombed. He emphasized that, according to initial reports, the airstrikes caused no human casualties.
The Pakistani operation came in direct response to a large-scale Afghan military offensive launched Thursday night against Pakistani military positions along the disputed Durand Line.
Afghan authorities described the operation as a retaliatory strike in response to earlier Pakistani attacks in Nangarhar and Paktika provinces earlier in the week.
According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of National Defense, Afghan forces killed 55 Pakistani soldiers, captured several others, and seized two military bases along with 19 border outposts during the Thursday night clashes.
The ministry reported that eight Afghan soldiers were martyred and eleven others wounded in the fighting.Separately, thirteen civilians were injured in a Pakistani rocket attack on a returnees’ camp in Nangarhar province earlier this week—an incident that further fueled Afghan anger and contributed to the cycle of retaliation.Both sides have issued sharply conflicting accounts of casualties and damage.
Pakistani officials have labeled the Afghan incursion an “open act of war” and stated that their air and ground operations were necessary to protect national sovereignty and respond proportionately.
Afghan leadership, however, insists that their actions were defensive, targeted exclusively at military installations, and carried out to safeguard Afghanistan’s territorial integrity.
The latest round of violence has severely undermined previous fragile ceasefires—some of which were mediated by third parties such as Qatar—and raised serious international concern about the risk of full-scale war between the two nuclear-armed neighbor states.
Despite calls from the United Nations, the United States, China, and several regional actors urging maximum restraint and immediate de-escalation, no meaningful progress toward dialogue has been reported so far.
The situation remains highly volatile, with both militaries on high alert and additional cross-border incidents considered likely in the coming days.
