The long-simmering stand-off between Pakistan and Afghanistan tipped over into open warfare late on February 26, continuing into the following day, with both sides trading air strikes, artillery fire and accusations of being sponsors of terror sponsorship in the most serious escalation along the 2,600 km Durand Line in years.

Clashes first broke out a month ago on the evening of January 26, when both sides exchanged artillery fire prior to ground troops skirmishing. At the time, while Islamabad described the incidents as unprovoked aggression by the Afghan Taliban forces along the border sectors, the Taliban claimed their forces were simply reacting to repeated Pakistani incursions.

The confrontation intensified sharply after Sunday, February 22, however, when Islamabad announced targeted strikes on seven militant positions belonging to Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Wilayat Khorasan - the Afghan affiliate of Islamic State. Pakistan’s Information Ministry later announced that the operation was carried out in response to a string of recent attacks inside Pakistan’s borders, including an explosion at a mosque in Islamabad which killed a number of worshippers.

Kabul condemned the strikes as provocative, in the process reporting dozens of civilian deaths and accusing Pakistan of again violating its territory. Taliban officials then warned that they reserved the right to respond decisively to any further incursions, and by late evening February 26, that response arrived.

According to multiple local sources, at around 8:00 p.m. local time, Afghan forces launched what the Defence Ministry has since called a coordinated offensive along the eastern and south-eastern stretches of the Durand Line. This encompasses the region around Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan. The ministry said the operation only targeted Pakistani military positions and was in direct retaliation for the February 22 air strikes.

Over the next four hours of on-and-off fighting, Afghan authorities claimed their forces had captured two Pakistani military bases as well as up to 19 border posts. Kabul also claimed that 55 Pakistani troops had been killed and that prisoners were taken while Pakistani military equipment, including a tank, was seized according to some sources.

Islamabad, as expected, offered a much different account of the four hours of fighting with Pakistani officials saying that their forces had destroyed Afghan fortifications and equipment in retaliation for the attacks. War was declared, albeit not long before the end of hostilities, and reports of at least 133 Afghan servicemen being killed and more than 200 more injured followed, as did claims that around 80 pieces of military hardware destroyed.

Afghan officials early on February 27, however, acknowledged just eight soldiers killed and 11 wounded, adding that 13 civilians were injured in a Pakistani missile strike on a refugee camp in Nangarhar province.

As such, with both sides offering different accounts with numbers almost impossible to verify and claiming victory, the potential existed for a substantial increase in hostilities on the ground, especially after Pakistan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister said his country’s air force had hit multiple military targets across Afghanistan, including in the capital region around Kabul.

Reports of military infrastructure being damaged or destroyed in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia soon appeared in media around the world with claims that brigade and corps headquarters, ammunition depots and logistics supply sites had been taken out.

Subsequent reports then said Pakistani aircraft were patrolling the skies over Kandahar, and with the US known to be interested in taking back charge of the sprawling Bagram air base just 60km north of Kabul, the possibility that there is US involvement somewhere behind the scenes on the side of Islamabad cannot be ruled out – particularly as the presence of a fully equipped US air base east of Iran would form the last part of an impregnable noose around the country if US President Donald Trump decides to launch a wave of regime-decapitating air strikes against the Islamic Republic to Afghanistan's west.

With the worst of the fighting seemingly over, the rhetoric grew more barbed from Islamabad after Defence Minister Khawaja Asif declared that the Taliban-led government in Kabul was essentially a colony of India, exporting terrorism and oppressing its population. The Taliban made no immediate moves to respond, and adding to the uncertainty are reports, albeit unverified, suggesting that a senior Afghan leader may have been killed in the recent strikes. The claims have not been confirmed by Kabul, and Pakistani officials have not commented directly, but such speculation could lead to further retaliation if senior Taliban figures were indeed targeted.

To this end, the Taliban government, recognised by Russia since July 2025, and with a de facto ambassador in Beijing, could opt for one of three possibilities: to seek diplomatic engagement with Islamabad to work towards deescalation, leverage international mediation by way of its closest international allies in Moscow, Beijing or perhaps Qatar, or, take further retaliatory measures against a neighbour with an overwhelmingly superior military capability.

But this is Afghanistan, a land that in the Great Game throughout much of the 19th Century, never actually fully succumbed to the British Empire as was, while at the same time managing to keep Russian ambitions in the region at arms length and across its northern border - historical outcomes that Pakistan is more than aware of. 

It is now therefore no coincidence that with diplomatic efforts underway, albeit tentatively, to bring about a confirmed end to the fighting at least, that officials in Beijing have signalled a willingness for China to play a stabilising role. Iran too has offered to facilitate dialogue according to regional media in what can only be seen as playing the long game in a bid to keep the Americans out of Bagram. Qatar too, which has previously hosted Taliban representatives, is also understood to be exploring backchannel contacts but none of the mediation efforts have yet produced a formal ceasefire.