Islamabad, Feb 27: Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, on Friday, with Islamabad\u2019s Defence Minister declaring the neighbours at \u201copen war\u201d following months of tit-for-tat clashes International News Agency journalists in Kabul and Kandahar heard blasts and jets overhead, as Pakistan launched air strikes on the Afghan capital and southern power base of the Taliban authorities. Pakistan\u2019s latest operation came after Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday (February 26, 2026) night over earlier air strikes by Islamabad. Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies. Several rounds of negotiations followed an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but the efforts have failed to produce a lasting agreement. Both militaries said they killed dozens of soldiers in the latest round of border violence, which followed multiple Pakistani strikes on Afghanistan and clashes along the frontier in recent months. \u201cAfghan Taliban defence targets were targeted in Kabul, Paktia [province] and Kandahar,\u201d Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X, while Defence Minister Khawaja Asif declared an \u201call-out confrontation\u201d with the Taliban government. \u201cOur patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you,\u201d he posted on the social media platform. Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country\u2019s armed forces can \u201chave the full capability to crush any aggressive ambitions\u201d. (Agencies)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad, Feb 27: Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, on Friday, with Islamabad\u2019s Defence Minister declaring the neighbours at \u201copen war\u201d following months of tit-for-tat clashes International News Agency journalists in Kabul and Kandahar heard blasts and jets overhead, as Pakistan launched air strikes on the Afghan capital and southern power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6077,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6076\/revisions\/6077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noukeqalamnews.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}