Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers announced that a ceasefire with neighboring Pakistan would come into force on Wednesday, after a second eruption of cross-border violence in less than a week that left dozens dead and injured and saw Pakistan carry out unprecedented airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a social media post that at least 12 civilians were killed and more than 100 wounded in cross-border attacks by Pakistani security forces along the border in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. An international medical charity said at least five people were killed in explosions in Kabul on Wednesday, but the cause of the blasts could not immediately be confirmed.

Mujahid said Taliban forces responded on Wednesday, killing several “invading Pakistani soldiers.”

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said on Wednesday it had recorded “dozens of Afghan civilians killed and injured as a result of recent cross-border clashes”, adding that it was still working “to determine the full extent of civilian damage”.

The agency called on “all parties to immediately end hostilities to protect civilians and prevent further loss of life.”

Mujahid said that under the ceasefire agreement, fighting would stop, “at the request and insistence of the Pakistani side,” at 5:30 p.m. local time (which was 8:30 a.m. Eastern time). He said the Taliban had ordered all its forces to observe the ceasefire, “as long as no one commits an act of aggression.”

Speaking to a Taliban-controlled radio and television network, the commander of the Afghan regional army, Mullah Gulbuddin Ilyas, accused Pakistani soldiers of starting the latest episode of violence.

In a statement, Pakistan’s military rejected “insinuations that the attack was initiated by Pakistan,” calling them “outrageous and brazen lies.”

“The Armed Forces are resolute and fully prepared to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. All acts of aggression against Pakistan will be responded to with full force,” the army said.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban government have deteriorated since the Taliban retook control of the country in the summer of 2021.

Tension increased on October 9, when the Pakistani air force carried out its first airstrikes on Kabul. The Taliban said Pakistan’s air force struck Kabul again on Wednesday, destroying a house, before the ceasefire came into effect. There was no immediate information on the victims of that attack.

However, international medical charity Emergency said in a statement on Wednesday that a center it runs in Kabul had admitted at least 40 people with “shrapnel wounds, blunt force trauma and burns. Ten are in critical condition. Unfortunately, five people were already dead when they arrived. The death toll and injury figures are still provisional.”

“We began to receive ambulances full of wounded and we learned that explosions had occurred a few kilometers from our hospital,” Afghanistan Emergency Director Dejan Panic said in a statement, adding that the wounded included women and children.

Emergency did not speculate on the cause of the casualties, and the Taliban also reported the explosion of a fuel tanker in the capital on Wednesday, apparently unrelated to the Pakistani attacks.

Pakistan said after its first airstrikes that it took the action because the Taliban was providing shelter and support to members of the Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistani, or TTP, often called the Pakistani Taliban, inside Afghanistan. The TTP has carried out deadly attacks against Pakistani civilians and security forces for years.

The Taliban launched a retaliatory offensive against Pakistani positions along the border on October 11 and violence continued sporadically until Wednesday afternoon.

In:

• taliban
• War
• Pakistan
• Afghanistan