Pakistani Forces Clash With Afghan Taliban After Infiltration Attempt

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani forces and Afghan Taliban personnel traded fire at multiple points along Pakistan’s northwestern border on Saturday. Pakistani security officials and state media reported that troops, supported by artillery, destroyed Taliban positions.

The officials said Pakistani forces also killed an unspecified number of Pakistani Taliban militants who attempted to enter Pakistan from a remote part of eastern Afghanistan during the clashes.

The exchange of fire continued for hours along the border in Kurram district, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to three Pakistani security officials. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government had not issued an immediate response.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated amid repeated border clashes and Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan this year, intensifying a long-running dispute over militant activity.

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The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported in September that it had recorded more than 1,100 civilian deaths and injuries resulting from cross-border violence in Afghanistan this year.

Militant attacks in Pakistan have risen sharply in recent months, with many blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The group is separate from the Afghan Taliban but maintains close ties with it. Pakistan says numerous TTP leaders and fighters have taken refuge in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, a claim rejected by Kabul.

Pakistani authorities say more than 2,800 militant attacks have taken place across the country since January, killing 3,000 people. Most of the violence has been concentrated in the northwest and in the southwestern province of Balochistan.