Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said his country's patience has run out and it is now in "open war" with neighboring Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported.
In an op-ed in "Ex", the Pakistani defense minister said this morning that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces and expected the Taliban to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and stability in the region. Instead, he said, the Taliban have turned Afghanistan "into a colony of India", gathered fighters from all over the world and started "exporting terrorism".
"Our patience has run out. "Now we are in open war," Asif said. There was no immediate reaction from the Afghan government to the minister's comments.
Pakistan often accuses neighboring India of supporting the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, charges that Delhi denies.
Asif's comments came hours after Pakistan carried out airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul, as well as on Kandahar in the south and Paktia province in the southeast. Pakistani officials and Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced the strikes. Pakistan says the strikes are in response to Afghan cross-border attacks. The escalation comes months after Qatar and Turkey brokered a ceasefire between the two countries. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran have offered to mediate after the latest clashes, officials in Islamabad and Kabul said, quoted by DPA. Russia, a regional power with influence over both countries, also called for the immediate start of talks to end the conflict and resolve the disputes through dialogue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a statement. The two warring sides have given radically different figures on the number of casualties and said they had inflicted heavy losses on their opponents. The AP notes that these claims cannot be independently verified.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said overnight that 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, including some whose bodies had been taken to Afghanistan, and that "several others had been captured alive". The ministry said eight Afghan soldiers had been killed and 11 wounded. It added that it had destroyed 19 Pakistani military posts and two bases and that the fighting had ended around midnight, about four hours after it began yesterday.
Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said two Pakistani soldiers had been killed and three wounded.
Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, a spokesman for Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured. In an article in "Ex" he said at least 133 Afghan fighters had been killed and more than 200 wounded. He also said 27 Afghan posts had been destroyed and nine fighters had been captured. The spokesman did not specify where the Afghan fighters had been killed, but added that there had been additional casualties in strikes on military targets in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar.
In Islamabad, two senior security officials said Afghan forces had raised white flags at some border posts, a gesture usually interpreted as a request for a ceasefire. The officials said Pakistani forces were continuing their strong response to the "unprovoked aggression" by the Afghan Taliban, and destroyed several key Taliban posts along the border.
Asif also accused the Taliban government of depriving Afghans of basic human rights, including women's rights, which he said were guaranteed by Islam.
The minister said Pakistan had tried to maintain stability both directly and through friendly countries. "Today, when attempts were made to carry out aggression against Pakistan, with God's help, our armed forces are repelling it decisively," he said.
Authorities in Pakistan said dozens of Afghan refugees waiting to return home through the "Torkham" border crossing had been moved to safer places after the clashes erupted.