Pakistan has threatened to carry out a decisive and open war with Afghanistan after the military killed 25 terrorists and lost five soldiers during an encounter near the Afghan border late Sunday evening, officials said.
The situation between the two sides has escalated after the recent border clashes and subsequent ceasefire announced by the mediators in Qatar. The latest attack on the Pakistani soldiers has angered Islamabad, which has threatened a decisive war against the Afghan Taliban.
The attack comes as both sides are engaged in diplomatic talks in Türkiye’s city of Istanbul following the recent ceasefire. The recent border clashes reported earlier this year marked the worst border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
The Pakistan military’s media wing, ISPR, said the Afghan terrorists tried to cross the border at points in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Director General of ISPR said that the timing of the crossing “casts doubts on the intention of the interim Afghan government about addressing the issue of terrorism originating from its soil.”
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It added that the interim Afghan government "is expected to fulfil its obligations of the Doha Agreement and deny the use of Afghan soil" against Pakistan. The Afghan side doesn’t seem to be interested in peace, and in that case, we will give them what they desire,” he added.
After the fighting that left soldiers and civilians dead, both countries declared an initial 48-hour ceasefire, which collapsed two days later. Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Saturday warned that failure to reach an agreement in Istanbul could lead to "open war".
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said he would get the conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan solved "very quickly". "Although I heard that Pakistan and Afghanistan have started up, I'll get that solved rapidly," Trump said on the sidelines of an ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur.
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