An explosion followed by successive gunfire were heard in central Kabul on Sunday, with the Taliban government saying Afghan forces were shooting at a fresh incursion by Pakistani aircraft.
Months of cross-border clashes have flared since Fe. 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along the frontier, with Pakistani forces hitting back on the border and from the skies.
"Anti-aircraft fire is being directed at Pakistani aircraft in Kabul," Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said yesterday, referring to guns being fired overhead.
Pakistan acknowledged bombing key cities on Feb. 27 including Kabul and Kandahar, which is home to Afghanistan's supreme leader.
The Afghan authorities have accused Pakistan of killing civilians in multiple attacks, which Islamabad has not commented on.
In rural southern Kandahar, construction workers said they were hit yesterday by two air strikes, which the manager of the site said killed three people.
Afghan officials said Feb. 26's border offensive was a response to earlier air strikes that killed civilians, which Pakistan said targeted militants.
In addition to those killed in Kandahar, the Afghan government's deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said Pakistani fire has killed 30 civilians across eastern Khost, Kunar and Paktika provinces since Feb. 26.
On the road between the Afghan capital Kabul and the border, an AFP journalist in Jalalabad heard a jet and two explosions on Feb. 28. Afghan security forces said they had downed a Pakistani fighter jet and captured its pilot, which Islamabad denied as "totally untrue."
On Feb. 28, residents in Paktika told AFP exchanges of fire were ongoing, while in Khost some people had fled their homes near the frontier.
"The bombardments started, children, women, everyone just got out," said Mohammad Rasool, 63, who had reached another district.
"Some didn't have shoes, some weren't veiled," he told AFP.
Diplomatic efforts have failed to secure a truce, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged in efforts to halt the fighting. China said it was "working with" both countries and called for calm.
The United States backed "Pakistan's right to defend itself against Taliban attacks," Allison Hooker, the under secretary of state for political affairs, wrote on X after talks with her Pakistani counterpart.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government rejects.
Many attacks have been claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a militant group that has stepped up assaults in Pakistan since 2021, the year the Taliban authorities returned to power in Kabul.
This week's escalation marked the first time that Pakistan has focused its air strikes on Afghan government facilities, analysts noted, a stark change from previous operations that it said targeted militants.
