Afghan Taliban strike into Pakistan as border tensions escalate
Afghanistan’s Taliban government carried out air strikes into Pakistani territory in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Pakistan’s military said it intercepted four “rudimentary drones” fired across the border in Balochistan. Islamabad said it would respond to any further provocation.
The exchange is the latest in cross-border fighting that has intensified since February, when a deadly attack in Karachi prompted Pakistani air strikes inside eastern Afghanistan. Islamabad accuses the Taliban of sheltering the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which it blames for a campaign of attacks on Pakistani soil; Kabul denies harboring the group and accuses Pakistan of violating Afghan sovereignty. Hundreds have been killed along the frontier this year.
The Taliban has no functioning air force or fighter jets, so its use of small drones to hit across the border reflects both the limits of its capabilities and a willingness to strike Pakistani targets directly — a shift that raises the risk of a wider confrontation between two nuclear-armed neighbors’ security forces.