Forces retaliate ‘vigorously’ after Afghan Taliban open fire in KP’s Bajaur sector: security sources

Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire in the Bajaur sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, said security sources.

They added that Pakistan’s security forces “retaliated vigorously” after Afghan Taliban fighters opened fire with “small and large weapons” along different areas of the border district.

Security sources further said retaliatory fire by Pakistani forces silenced the enemy’s guns and “Afghan posts from which Pakistan was being fired at were also destroyed”.

According to local security officials, Pakistan “did not target any civilian population, but only targeted those posts from which continuous firing was being done”.

The For­eign Office (FO) on Thur­sday said that the temporary pause in Operation Ghazab lil-Haq against the Afghan Taliban over Eidul Fitr had concluded, and the operation will continue “until its objectives are achieved”.

FO spokesperson Tahir Andrabi made these remarks while responding to questions during his weekly press briefing regarding whether the pause had been extended.

The operation was lau­nched on the night of Feb 26, following unprovoked cross-border attacks by the Afghan Taliban.

Earlier this month, Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir said that peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan could only prevail if the Taliban regime “renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organisations”.

Relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban are at their lowest point in the four years since the group came to power.

Last year in October, border clashes had erupted between Pakistan and Afghanistan across their 2,600-kilometre frontier. Following those clashes, Turkiye and Qatar had stepped in to mediate.

The first round in Doha produced a fragile ceasefire, while the second, also in Doha, ended with only a general agreement to develop a mechanism for verifying compliance and a decision to continue talks. The third round concluded without any concrete agreement.