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Afghanistan and Pakistan announce temporary ceasefire after deadly border clashes
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Afghanistan and Pakistan announce temporary ceasefire after deadly border clashes

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A 48-hour ceasefire between Afghanistan and Pakistan came into effect late on Wednesday, officials from both sides said, after dozens of troops and civilians were killed in fresh cross-border clashes earlier in the day.
The ceasefire began at 6pm Islamabad time (12pm AEDT Thursday), shortly after it was announced by both countries, with both countries claiming the other had called for an end to the wave of violence.
Pakistan said the ceasefire would last 48 hours.

“During this period, both sides will sincerely strive to find a positive solution to this complex but resolvable issue through constructive dialogue,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said.

In Kabul, the Afghan Taliban government said it had instructed the Afghan army to respect the ceasefire “unless it is violated” by the opposing side, a spokesperson said on X.
The temporary ceasefire followed a week of violence between the two neighbors.
The Taliban had launched an offensive along parts of the southern border with Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to impose a strong response of its own.
Islamabad has accused Afghanistan of harboring militant groups led by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its territory, a claim Kabul denies.

With both countries on edge, plumes of black smoke were seen over Kabul on Wednesday evening after two explosions, AFP reporters said.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said an oil tanker and a generator had exploded, causing a fire, although he did not explicitly link the blasts to the clashes with Pakistan.
At least five people were killed and 35 injured in explosions in Kabul on Wednesday, an Italian NGO running a hospital in the Afghan capital said, before the ceasefire took effect.
“We started receiving ambulances full of wounded people and we heard that explosions had occurred a few kilometers away from our hospital,” Dejan Panic, EMERGENCY country director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

Ambulances raced through Kabul, where broken glass from damaged buildings littered the streets. Taliban forces also cordoned off some streets in the city.

Increase in seizures

The Pakistani army previously accused the Afghan Taliban of attacking two major border posts in the southwest and northwest.
It said both attacks were repelled, killing about 20 Taliban fighters in strikes launched early Wednesday near Spin Boldak on the Afghan side of the border in southern Kandahar province.
“Unfortunately, the attack was orchestrated by divided villages in the area without regard for the civilian population,” the army said in a statement.

Another 30 people were also said to have been killed in overnight clashes along Pakistan’s northwestern border.

Children of Pakistani soldier Faisal Khan, who was killed in heavy fighting with Taliban security forces on the Pakistani border in Chaman, attend his funeral in Kohat, Pakistan. Source: MONKEY / Simple Gilani

The Afghan Taliban said 15 civilians were killed and dozens injured in the fighting at Spin Boldak and that “two to three” of their fighters were also killed.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid said in an earlier statement that 100 civilians were also injured around Spin Boldak, adding that calm had returned after Pakistani soldiers were killed and weapons seized.
The Pakistani military said these were “outrageous and blatant lies.”
Pakistan did not seek a toll for its losses in the latest clashes, but said 23 troops were killed in the opening skirmishes last week.

In a separate incident, a senior security official in Peshawar, northwestern Pakistan, said seven border troops were killed in an attack on a checkpoint.

The relatively new armed group Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen claimed responsibility.
The Taliban government said it launched the offensive in “retaliation for the Pakistani army’s airstrikes on Kabul.”
Islamabad then vowed a strong response on Sunday, and dozens of casualties were reported on both sides.
In Khost province, Afghan journalist Abdul Ghafoor Abid of state television RTA was killed by Pakistani fire on Sunday while reporting on the cross-border fighting, a Taliban official said.

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