Pakistan’s ‘open war’ with Afghanistan heats up

What happened

Pakistan’s military Sunday escalated days of violent skirmishes with Afghanistan by launching airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, according to Afghan officials. After months of attacks inside Pakistan by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said on Friday that his country’s “patience has now run out” and “it is open war” with Afghanistan for allegedly harboring the militants.

Who said what

Pakistan has repeatedly bombed Kabul, Kandahar and “dozens of small Afghan military bases, ammunition depots and outposts in recent days,” The New York Times said. But “targeting Bagram is different,” because it is the “most prized military asset” of Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and its “big trophy” from retaking the country from the U.S. Afghanistan said it thwarted the attack.

On Friday, Afghanistan said it had launched strikes against military targets in Islamabad and Abbottabad, and “both sides claimed their strikes were retaliatory,” The Associated Press said. Pakistan says it has killed more than 330 Afghan forces since the long-simmering conflict intensified last week and Afghanistan says it has killed 110 Pakistani soldiers. Both sides have dismissed the other’s casualty figures as inflated.

What next?

The “latest phase of the conflict” between the former allies “is expected to continue flaring up and may escalate” further, the Times said in an analysis. Pakistan “has one of the largest militaries in Asia” and can “inflict major damage on cities in Afghanistan,” but the Afghan Taliban “honed guerrilla tactics over more than two decades of war with U.S. forces,” and its allied militias “are likely to target deeper in Pakistan’s territory with more attacks, including suicide bombings and assaults on security forces.”