PESHAWAR: Pakistan said on Sunday 23 of its soldiers were killed and 29 wounded in overnight cross-border clashes with Afghan Taliban fighters and other militants in the fiercest fighting between the two neighbors since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021.
The confrontation marks an unprecedented escalation of hostilities along the porous 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) frontier, known as the Durand Line, and threatens to unravel already fragile relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
Earlier in the week, Afghan authorities accused Pakistan of bombing the capital, Kabul, and a market in the country’s east. Pakistan did not claim responsibility for the assault. On Sunday, the Afghan Taliban said they had killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations in response to what it said were repeated violations of its territory and airspace.
Pakistan has previously struck locations inside Afghanistan, targeting what it alleges are militant hideouts, but these have been in remote and mountainous areas. The two sides have also skirmished along the border in the past.
“On the night of 11/12 Oct 2025, Afghan Taliban and Indian-sponsored Fitna al Khawarij [Pakistani Taliban/TTP] launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistan, along the Pak-Afghan border,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said in a statement.
