Kabul probing alleged Afghan airspace violation by Pakistani jets

KARACHI, Pakistan

Afghanistan said on Tuesday that it is investigating reports of Pakistani fighter jets violating Afghan airspace while patrolling.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the interim Afghan government, said Kabul will respond “seriously” if Afghanistan’s airspace is violated, the local broadcaster Tolo News reported.

"The patrolling of Pakistani aircraft has not yet been confirmed,” the broadcaster quoted Mujahid as saying: "We are investigating this matter, and if such a thing has happened, we will take serious action.”

The statement came on the heels of the latest clash between Pakistani and Afghan border forces along the northwestern Torkham border on Monday that caused a brief closure of the key crossing.

The Torkham border, which connects Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, reopened on Tuesday following a "flag meeting" between the two sides, a Pakistani security official told Anadolu on condition of anonymity.

Mujahid's reaction came in response to unconfirmed reports of Pakistani fighter jets patrolling the airspace of Nangarhar and neighboring Kunar province.

Islamabad accuses "Afghan-based" Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militants of carrying out militant attacks inside Pakistan, while Kabul denies the allegation that such attacks are launched from its soil.

In response to militant attacks, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Asif in June had threatened to launch cross-border strikes to eliminate the militants.

No country has the right to violate Afghanistan's airspace, Mujahid added.

Separately, Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said two border outposts on the other side of the “hypothetical Durand Line” were destroyed during clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces.

Abdul Matin Qani, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, claimed in a post on X on Tuesday that Pakistani forces targeted civilian homes, killing a woman and two children.

He claimed that Pakistani forces opened fire on Afghan border forces on Monday in the Ghorki area near the “Durand Line” in Torkham, prompting a response from the Afghan side.

Pakistan did not immediately respond to Kabul's allegations. When Anadolu contacted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch for comment, she did not respond.

Sporadic clashes between troops at the Pakistan-Afghan border have been ongoing for a long time, with no respite even after the Taliban took power in the war-torn country in August 2021.

Pakistan and landlocked Afghanistan share 18 border crossing points, the busiest of which are Torkham and southwestern Chaman in Balochistan province.

Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line -- the de facto border between the two countries -- on the grounds that it was created by a British colonial “to divide ethnic Pashtuns.”

However, Islamabad maintains that the Durand Line is a permanent border between the two neighboring countries.

The 2,640-kilometer-long (1,640-mile) border was established in 1893 in line with an agreement between India under British colonial rule and Abdur Rahman Khan, the then-ruler of Afghanistan.