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KABUL – Afghan officials reported on Sunday that they successfully intercepted an attempted aerial assault on Bagram Air Base, a former U.S. military stronghold situated north of Kabul. Simultaneously, hostilities along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier persisted into a fourth consecutive day.
The ongoing skirmishes mark some of the most intense confrontations between the two nations in recent history. Pakistan has declared an “open war” stance against Afghanistan, raising global concerns, especially given the presence of groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, who continue to seek influence in the region.
Pakistan has pointed fingers at Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government, accusing it of sheltering militants who launch attacks against Pakistan and alleging collaboration with India’s interests.
In October, border clashes resulted in numerous casualties among soldiers, civilians, and suspected militants. A ceasefire, brokered by Qatar, temporarily halted the violence. However, peace discussions held in Turkey during November failed to yield a long-term resolution, and intermittent exchanges of fire have occurred since.
On Sunday, authorities from Parwan province, where Bagram is situated, revealed that several Pakistani jets violated Afghan airspace around 5 a.m., attempting to strike Bagram Air Base. Afghan forces reportedly engaged with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems,” successfully averting the threat.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a U.S. presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer (12-square-mile) area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having sezied it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
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Elena Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Munir Ahmed contributed to this report from Islamabad.
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