Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire after their forces exchanged fire across the border on October 15. The two countries have clashed over the past month as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan (TTP) has continued to use Afghanistan as a safe haven from which to launch attacks in Pakistan.
“At the request and insistence of the Pakistani side, the ceasefire between the two countries will begin after 5:30 PM today,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced on his X account. “The Islamic Emirate also directs all its forces to adhere to the ceasefire and not to violate it after 5:30 PM today unless there is a violation.”
The ceasefire was implemented after the two countries exchanged fire at the border crossing in Spin Boldak in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. The two sides gave differing accounts of the clash.
According to the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani forces killed 12 civilians and wounded more than 100 after they “launched attacks with light and heavy weapons” into Afghan territory, Mujahid claimed. “After that, Afghan forces were forced to take retaliatory action.”
Mujahid also claimed that “multiple Pakistani aggressor soldiers were killed, their posts and centers were captured, weapons and tanks fell into the hands of Afghan forces, and most of their military installations were destroyed.” A post on Mujahid’s X account showed videos of military vehicles, including a tank, moving along the border, as well as Taliban fighters in combat.
Pakistan’s account of the fighting differed. According to the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Public Relations division (ISPR), the Taliban “resorted to cowardly attack[s] at four locations in [the] Spin Boldak area of Balochistan. The attack was effectively repulsed by Pakistani Forces.” The ISPR claimed that “15-20 Afghan Taliban have been killed and many injured.”
The ISPR also accused the Afghan Taliban and “Fitna Al Khwarij,” Pakistan’s term for the TTP, of launching an attack in the Kurram district of Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The ISPR claimed that “eight posts including six tanks were destroyed in the effective yet proportionate response of Pakistani troops” and “25-30 Afghan Taliban and Fitna Al Khwarij fighters were suspected to have been killed.”
Beginning in 2024, as the TTP ramped up its attacks in Pakistan, the Pakistani state started referring to the TTP as the Fitna al Khwarij and calling the group an “Indian proxy.” Pakistan has attempted to shift the blame toward India for the TTP’s growing insurgency and brazen attacks in Pakistan, even though the Afghan Taliban, which Pakistan has supported since its founding in 1994, helped form and sheltered the TTP with the knowledge of Pakistan’s military and government.
The TTP’s leadership and more than 6,000 fighters are based in Afghanistan, where the group is also known to operate training camps, according to the United Nations Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The Taliban denies sheltering any foreign terror groups. TTP emir Noor Wali Mehsud, who was targeted last week by the Pakistani military in the Afghan capital of Kabul, has said that the TTP “is a branch of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
The Afghan Taliban’s support for the TTP and the latter’s attacks in Pakistan have been a point of contention between the otherwise allies since the Afghan Taliban took control of Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August 2021. The Pakistani military and the Afghan Taliban have exchanged fire several times along their shared border in the four years since the Taliban seized control of the country. However, the past month of fighting has been the most intense exchange of fire.
