As many as 19 people were killed after Afghanistan launched a surgical attack on Pakistan across the Durand Line, the de facto border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and captured several Pakistani military positions, according to local media reports in Afghanistan. A Pakistani soldier was killed.
The Afghan attack was carried out in retaliation for a Dec. 24 Pakistani airstrike in Afghanistan’s Paktika province that the Taliban claimed killed 46 Afghan nationals, most of them women and children. .
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense wrote on social media platform X: It became a target of retaliation from the south of the country. ”
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Inayatullah Kwarazmi said the Dec. 28 attack took place in an area used to organize attacks on mainland Afghanistan.
Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, a ministry spokesperson said: “We do not consider it to be Pakistani territory…but it was on the other side of the line of assumption.”
At the same time, Afghan government officials told Kabul-based TOLO News that 19 Pakistani soldiers and five Afghan civilians were killed in clashes between Islamic Emirati forces and Pakistani forces along the Durand Line. Ta.
Emirati forces also set fire to some Pakistani military outposts across the Durand Line, officials said.
Pakistan’s government has acknowledged that there have been multiple clashes along the controversial Durand Line, but has so far reported only one Pakistani soldier dead.
“Afghan troops fired indiscriminately at several Pakistan border posts in Upper Kurram district on Saturday morning, resulting in the death of one Frontier Police (FC) soldier,” Dawn newspaper reported, citing Pakistani government sources. Eleven other people were injured.”
Sources said Afghan forces used both light and heavy weapons to target border crossings in Ghozgarhi, Mata Sangar, Kot Ragha and Tari Mengal areas, with Pakistani security forces retaliating and killing Afghan military personnel. He added that seven to eight people caused great damage to the other side. Afghan troops were killed in the gunfight.
In the early morning hours of December 26, multiple clashes were reported between the two countries at the Ghulam Khan intersection in Gurbuz District, Khost Province, Afghanistan.
The latest clashes between the two countries came in the aftermath of Pakistan’s December 24 airstrike on Afghanistan, which reportedly killed 46 Afghans. Notably, this was the second airstrike carried out by Pakistan in Afghanistan this year. Earlier, Islamabad airstrikes in Afghanistan in March killed eight people, including women and children.
In both cases, Pakistan claimed to have targeted TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) hideouts in Afghanistan that were used in terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil.
Following Pakistan’s airstrikes in March, Afghanistan’s Taliban government also took retaliatory measures. Following the airstrike, a group of suicide bombers targeted a military checkpoint in North Waziristan district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing seven Pakistani soldiers.
Controversial Durand Line
A statement from the Afghan Ministry of Defense said Afghanistan was targeting several locations beyond the “imaginary line”.
Asked whether the statement referred to Pakistan, an Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesperson said: “We do not consider it to be Pakistani territory… but it is on the other side of the line of assumption.”
The “imaginary line” referred to in the statement is the Durand Line, which has served as the de facto border between Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1947. However, Afghanistan has never officially recognized the Durand Line.
The Durand Line is a colonial-era structure. It was established in 1893 as a border between British India and the Emirate of Afghanistan. It is named after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, who was the Foreign Secretary of the Indian colonial government.
With the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, Islamabad had hoped for a friendly government in Kabul that would recognize the sanctity of the Durand Line.
However, a statement from the Afghan Ministry of Defense made it clear that the Taliban do not recognize the Durand Line. This clearly indicates that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border remains a constant source of instability and tension between the two countries.
The Great Game: The Story of the Century and How the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Was Built
“The Great Game” is a phrase immortalized in Rudyard Kipling’s fascinating spy novel Kim. It describes a century of tactical maneuvering between Britain and Imperial Russia to control and influence the Emirate of Afghanistan.
By the 19th century, the British Indian Empire had already become the “crown jewel” of the British monarchy. India was Britain’s largest and wealthiest colony, and its protection was one of Britain’s top priorities in the late 19th century.
This period also saw the rapid expansion of Imperial Russia, first into the Balkans and then into Central Asia.
In the 19th century, the Ottoman Turks and Tsarist Russia engaged in several wars and conflicts, which ended in similar outcomes: the defeat of the Ottoman Turks. As Ottoman rule moved away from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, Tsarist Russia expanded into territories formally controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
Russia’s unprecedented expansion made Britain nervous, fearing that it would eventually threaten the Indian Empire. By the 1870s, the Afghan Highlands became the only territory separating Tsarist Russia and the British Indian Empire.
Afghanistan thus became a pawn in the so-called Great Game. The British wanted Afghanistan to be a buffer state that would keep Russia out.
Seeking influence in Afghanistan, the British invaded Afghanistan twice. First, the First Anglo-Afghan War broke out in 1839, when Pashtun forces defeated the British army. The second time was in 1878, when the Second Anglo-Afghan War broke out and the Afghans were defeated.
Britain appointed Abdul Rahman Khan as the new leader of Afghanistan. In 1893, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the Indian colonial government’s foreign secretary, induced Abdul Rahman Khan to agree to an international boundary.
Thus was created the Durand Line, a 1,600 mile (2,600 km) long de facto border between Afghanistan and British India. However, it penetrated the heart of the Pashtun region and divided them into two countries.
When the British left India in 1947, the Durand Line became the de facto border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, dividing the British-Indian Empire into two separate countries, India and Pakistan.
However, Afghanistan never accepted the sanctity of the Durand lineage, always viewing it as a colonial legacy imposed by a powerful imperial power that had defrauded the traditional Pashtun region.
Pashtuns maintain family and religious ties on both sides of the border. For most of its existence, this bridge crossed the border so frequently that it made little real difference in the lives of people on either side.
However, in 2017, Pakistan decided to fence the entire line, a decision opposed by the former Afghan government backed by the US and the Taliban government in Kabul.
Last year, Pakistan reported that the fencing project was 98% complete. The fence physically separates families and communities and is a source of constant friction between the Taliban and the Pakistani government.
conclusion
Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan are emblematic of a complex and multifaceted issue in South Asia’s geopolitics. These attacks and Afghanistan’s response could further destabilize the volatile border area between the two countries.
Although Pakistan has justified its actions as a necessary response to cross-border militancy, the long-term impact of these attacks will not only further strain Afghanistan-Pakistan relations but also threaten the broader region. May worsen instability.
Sumit Arawat has over 10 years of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times and Microsoft News. She holds an MA in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK. He is interested in studying geopolitics from a historical perspective. Contact him at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com.
