Truce holds between Pakistan and Afghanistan as Muttaqi returns from India visit

A 48-hour ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan is holding, with no new reports of skirmishes, following cross-border clashes between the Pakistani military and Afghan Taliban fighters that resulted in the deaths of dozens of combatants and civilians.

The ceasefire came as Amir Khan Muttaqi, the top diplomat of the Afghan interim administration, concluded his six-day tour to India and returned to Kabul.

The truce began at 6:00 pm Islamabad time (1300 GMT), shortly after being announced by both countries, with Islamabad asserting that Kabul had requested it to end the surge in violence.

According to Pakistan, the ceasefire was expected to last 48 hours.

"During this period, both sides will sincerely strive to find a positive solution to this complex but resolvable issue through constructive dialogue," the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

In Kabul, Afghanistan's interim government said it had ordered the Afghan army to respect the truce, "unless it is violated" by the opposing side, a spokesman said on X.

Khawaja Asif, Pakistan's Defence Minister, however, doubted the ceasefire, claiming the Afghan Taliban are now "a proxy of India."

"I have my doubts that the ceasefire will hold, because the [Afghan] Taliban are being sponsored by Delhi," he added. "Right now, Kabul is fighting a proxy war for Delhi."

Asif warned Afghan Taliban against widening "the radius of this war", adding, "There have been deep strikes in Afghanistan, and a ceasefire was agreed on after the intervention of friendly countries, but it is fragile. I don’t believe this will last long."

The temporary ceasefire followed a week of violence between the two South Asian neighbours.

The Taliban had launched attacks along parts of its southern border with Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to vow a strong response of its own. Islamabad has accused Afghanistan of harbouring terror groups led by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil.

The Afghan interim administration, in recent statements, mentioned police firing in Pakistan while Kabul referred to the disputed region of Kashmir as part of India in a joint statement with New Delhi. However, it has rarely condemned the TTP for attacking Pakistani civilians and military personnel and continues to deny supporting the terror group.

Pakistan uses the term "India-sponsored Fitna-al-Khawarij" for TTP terrorists while "Fitna-al-Hindustan" is a term designated for terrorist organisations targeting Balochistan province.

According to Pakistani military officials, more than 500 people, including 311 soldiers, have been killed in attacks, largely carried by TTP, so far this year.

A UN report notes that the TTP receives "substantial logistical and operational support" from the interim Taliban government in Kabul.

On Wednesday, with both countries on edge, plumes of black smoke were seen rising above Kabul after two blasts, AFP reporters said. At least five people were killed and 35 wounded in Wednesday explosions in Kabul, an Italian NGO which runs a hospital in the Afghan capital said, before the truce entered into effect.

"We started receiving ambulances filled with wounded people, and we learned that there had been explosions a few kilometres away from our hospital," Dejan Panic, EMERGENCY's country director in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

Ambulances raced through Kabul where shattered glass from damaged buildings littered the streets, AFP saw. Afghan forces also cordoned off some city streets.

Surge in attacks

Pakistan's military earlier accused the Afghan Taliban of attacking two major border posts in the southwest and northwest. It said both assaults were repelled, with about 20 Taliban fighters killed in attacks launched early Wednesday near Spin Boldak on the Afghan side of the frontier in southern Kandahar province.

"Unfortunately the attack was orchestrated through divided villages in the area, with no regard for the civil population," the military said in a statement. It also said about 30 more people were thought to have been killed in overnight clashes along Pakistan's northwest border.

The Afghan Taliban said 15 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the clashes near Spin Boldak and that "two to three" of its fighters were also killed.

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Afghan interim administration, said in an earlier statement that 100 civilians were also wounded around Spin Boldak, adding that calm had returned after Pakistani soldiers were killed and weapons seized.

Pakistan's military said these were "outrageous and blatant lies". Pakistan did not give a toll for its losses in the latest clashes but said last week 23 of its troops had been killed in the opening skirmishes, adding it killed more than 200 Taliban and "affiliated terrorists".

Ahead of the truce, Pakistan said its armed forces conducted "precision strikes" in Afghanistan's Kandahar province and capital Kabul, "exclusively on Afghan Taliban and Khawarij (TTP terror group) hideouts."

"As a result of these strikes, Afghan Taliban Battalion Number 4 and Border Brigade Number 6 completely destroyed. Dozens of foreign and Afghan operatives [were] killed," a statement carried by state-run PTV news channel said.

Muttaqi returns from India visit

The tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan this month have coincided with Afghan interim administration’s Foreign Minister Muttaqi's six-day visit to India, Pakistan's arch rival.

India and Afghanistan, during Muttaqi's visit which ended on Wednesday, decided to upgrade ties, with New Delhi saying it would reopen its embassy in Kabul, and the Afghan interim government also announcing it would send its diplomats to India.

Referring to Pakistan-Afghanistan clashes, Muttaqi, who once lived and studied in Pakistan as a refugee, told journalists in New Delhi that "The courage of Afghans should not be tested. If someone wants to do this, they should ask the British, Soviet Union, America and NATO, so that they can explain that it is not good to play games with Afghanistan."

Pakistan was also irked by a joint statement issued on October 10, following Muttaqi's meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, in which interim Afghanistan government condemned an attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, India-administered Kashmir, that ignited a four-day war between the nuclear rivals.  

The Kabul-New Delhi statement's phrasing, explicitly referring to the location as "Jammu and Kashmir, India," was interpreted by observers and Islamabad as an implicit endorsement of India's sovereignty over the disputed region. A majority of Kashmiris, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the UN have been demanding plebiscite in the disputed region, as per multiple UN resolutions.

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Source: TRT