Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry says its forces killed 28 fighters and wounded 32 others after an armed group crossed from Pakistan into the northeastern province of Nuristan.
The fighting took place on Saturday in Kamdesh district, a mountainous area bordering Pakistan’s Chitral region. Afghan authorities said the group included members of Islamic State and had entered the country to carry out attacks and create insecurity.
The ministry accused Pakistani military personnel and local militias of helping the fighters cross the frontier. It claimed the Pakistani personnel withdrew when Afghan forces launched their operation and that the surviving fighters fled back towards militia positions across the border. Pakistan rejected the allegations as “frivolous, baseless and devoid of any truth”.
Afghanistan alleged that many of the fighters were former members of the security forces that served under the previous Afghan government before the Taliban seized Kabul in August 2021.
According to the Afghan account, Pakistani intelligence officials brought the former soldiers to Pakistan after promising them high salaries and assistance in securing asylum abroad. Kabul claimed the men were instead taken to military camps, given brief training and sent back into Afghanistan to destabilise parts of Nuristan.
The accusation represents a serious escalation in the dispute between the two countries. Pakistan has spent years accusing the Taliban government of sheltering the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has carried out repeated attacks against Pakistani security forces. The TTP is organisationally separate from the Afghan Taliban but shares ideological and operational links with it.
Kabul denies giving the group sanctuary and maintains that Pakistan’s militant violence is an internal problem. Afghanistan is now making a similar accusation in reverse by claiming Pakistani agencies are recruiting and training fighters for operations on Afghan territory.
The clash came less than a week after Pakistan conducted airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. Islamabad said those attacks destroyed three militant sites and killed 28 fighters and suicide bombers. Afghan officials said the strikes killed three civilians in Kunar province, including a man, a woman and a girl. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan confirmed those civilian deaths.
Pakistan said the airstrikes followed a series of deadly militant attacks inside its territory. Kabul condemned them as a violation of Afghan sovereignty and warned that it would respond.
The dispute is made more volatile by the contested frontier. Pakistan recognises the 2,611-kilometre Durand Line as the international border, while successive Afghan governments have refused to formally accept it. Drawn by British India in 1893, the line divides Pashtun communities and has remained a source of political and territorial hostility.
The Nuristan operation has therefore opened another front in an already dangerous confrontation. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harbouring militants who attack Pakistani territory, while Kabul now alleges that Islamabad is sending armed groups across the same frontier. Without an effective mechanism to investigate either side’s claims, each new attack risks producing retaliation and drawing both countries into a prolonged border conflict.
