Pakistani media report a drone has hit a mosque in Bannu close to the border, injuring at the least 5 individuals.
Revealed On 28 Feb 2026
Worldwide requires mediation are rising as Pakistan and Afghanistan have interaction in cross-border fighting for a third day, in essentially the most critical flare-up in violence between the neighbours in months that Pakistan says has introduced them into “open battle”.
The European Union’s international coverage chief Kaja Kallas urged on Saturday for the international locations to deliver down the temperature and enter talks, warning the violence might have an effect on the broader area.
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Iran, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, in addition to UN Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres, additionally urged de-escalation and mediation.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have mentioned they’re open to negotiations to deliver an finish to the battle. However Pakistan on Saturday mentioned there could be “no dialogue”, repeating its long-running demand that Afghanistan cease harbouring “terrorism”, an allegation Kabul denies.
“There received’t be any talks. There’s no dialogue. There’s no negotiation. Terrorism from Afghanistan has to finish,” the Pakistani prime minister’s spokesperson for international media, Mosharraf Zaidi, informed Pakistan TV, stressing that Pakistan’s accountability was to guard its residents and territory.
In the meantime, tit-for-tat assaults occurred close to the fraught border. Afghan media reported that Taliban forces fired drone assaults on Pakistani army camps within the border areas of Miranshah and Spinwam.
Pakistan’s Daybreak newspaper reported a drone assault hit a mosque within the metropolis of Bannu additional south, injuring at the least 5 individuals. And Pakistan TV mentioned Pakistani forces waged their very own assault concentrating on a number of positions of the Afghan Taliban.
The most recent violence erupted after Pakistani air strikes on Afghan territory last weekend triggered retaliatory Afghan assaults stretching throughout six Pakistani districts on Thursday. In response, Pakistan carried out widespread aerial assaults within the early hours of Friday on the Afghan capital and two different areas, Kandahar and Paktia. It was Pakistan’s first air strikes on the southern energy base of the Taliban authorities since they returned to energy in 2021.
Either side reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls. Pakistan mentioned 12 of its troopers and 274 Taliban have been killed, whereas the Taliban mentioned 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani troopers died. Neither facet’s claims may very well be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
The US, which considers Pakistan a significant non-NATO ally, mentioned it backs Pakistan’s proper to “defend itself towards Taliban assaults”.
Pakistan has witnessed a pointy rise in violence inside the nation in recent times, together with suicide bombings and coordinated assaults concentrating on safety forces. Pakistani authorities blame the Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, for lots of the assaults, and accuse Afghanistan of sheltering the group inside Afghanistan.
Kabul rejects the allegations and says it doesn’t permit anybody to make use of Afghan soil for assaults on any nation, together with Pakistan.
Pakistan is nuclear-armed and its army capabilities are vastly superior to Afghanistan’s. Nonetheless, the Taliban is adept at warfare, hardened by many years of preventing with United States-led forces.
