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Silence returns to Pakistan-Afghan border after night of heavy clashes

By Mashal Khan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - An uneasy silence settled over parts of the Pakistan–Afghanistan border early Friday morning after a night of heavy clashes, according to local residents.

Gul Afridi, a resident of Khyber district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told The South Asia Times that gunfire stopped around Sehri, the pre-dawn meal observed before the day’s fast during Ramadan.

“There was firing throughout the night,” said Gul, a shopkeeper who spent hours sheltering inside his home near the border. “Since Sehri, it has been silent. For now, there is calm.”

The lull followed the launch of Pakistan’s military campaign, Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, initiated after what Islamabad described as unprovoked Taliban aggression on multiple Pakistani border posts late Thursday evening.

Pakistani security officials said the response involved both ground and air operations targeting Taliban positions along the border as well as military installations deeper inside Afghanistan.

According to security sources, strikes targeted sites in Kabul, Paktia, and Kandahar. Officials claimed that two Taliban corps headquarters, three brigade headquarters, and three battalion headquarters were destroyed. They also reported the destruction of two sector headquarters, two ammunition depots, and a logistics base.

Along the border, security sources said 27 Taliban posts were destroyed and nine others captured during ground operations. More than 80 tanks, artillery guns, and armored personnel carriers were reportedly damaged or destroyed.

Security officials further stated that 133 Taliban fighters were killed and more than 200 wounded.

Two Pakistani soldiers also lost their lives, and three others injured.

The latest escalation marks one of the most intense confrontations between the two neighbors in recent months. Islamabad has long accused Afghanistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists of carrying out cross-border attacks inside Pakistan with the support of the Afghan Taliban - an allegation Kabul has consistently denied.

On Saturday night, Pakistan said it targeted seven TTP hideouts in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar, Paktika and Khost provinces following a recent wave of suicide bombings in various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that martyred more than a dozen security personnel, including army and police officers.