Pakistan Airstrikes in Afghanistan Kill Civilians Amid Escalating Conflict

The deadliest cross-border military confrontation between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the Taliban's return to power in 2021 has killed scores of civilians, displaced nearly 66,000 people, and drawn declarations of "open war" — all while the international community scrambles for a diplomatic off-ramp.

A Suicide Bombing Lights the Fuse

On February 6, 2026, a suicide bomber detonated explosives inside the Khadija Tul Kubra Mosque, a Shia house of worship in Islamabad's Tarlai Kalan neighborhood, during Friday prayers. The blast killed 32 worshippers and injured 170 others — one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan's capital in over a decade [1]. The Islamic State's Pakistan Province (ISPP), a sister franchise of the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP), claimed responsibility. Within hours, Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi announced the arrest of four suspects, including what he described as an "Afghan Daesh mastermind," and the military declared that "planning, training, and indoctrination for the attack took place in Afghanistan" [2].

The mosque bombing was not an isolated incident. In the weeks preceding it, Pakistan had endured a devastating string of militant attacks: a week-long series of assaults across Balochistan by the Balochistan Liberation Army from January 29 to February 5, and an attack on a military checkpoint in Bajaur on February 16 by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that killed 11 soldiers and a child [3]. According to ACLED data, the TTP — which Pakistan's government now refers to as "Fitna al-Khawarij" — engaged in at least 600 attacks against security forces in the past year alone, with activity in 2025 already exceeding all of 2024 [4].

For Islamabad, these attacks were proof of a simple and infuriating equation: the Afghan Taliban was harboring the very militants who were tearing Pakistan apart from within.

February 22: Pakistan Strikes Back

On February 22, Pakistan's military launched what it called "intelligence-based, selective operations" — airstrikes targeting seven camps and hideouts in Afghanistan's Nangarhar and Paktika provinces, allegedly belonging to the TTP, its affiliates, and ISKP [5]. The strikes were framed as a direct response to the Islamabad mosque bombing and the wider surge in terrorism.

The Taliban government in Kabul immediately condemned the operation as a "blatant violation of Afghanistan's territorial integrity" and a breach of international law. Afghan officials said the bombs hit civilian homes, a religious seminary, and other civilian structures, killing at least 18 people including women and children [5]. The contrast between Pakistan's narrative of surgical counterterrorism strikes and the Taliban's account of indiscriminate civilian carnage would become the defining fault line of the weeks to come.

From Airstrikes to Open War

Four days later, on February 26, the Afghan Taliban launched a retaliatory operation — attacking Pakistani military posts along the Durand Line in the border areas of Khost and Paktia provinces [6]. Pakistan responded within hours with a second, far more devastating wave of airstrikes that struck targets across multiple Afghan provinces, including the capital Kabul itself.

The following day, Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif made a declaration that reverberated across South Asia: Islamabad's patience had run out, and the two countries were now at "open war" [7].

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

The declaration was not mere rhetoric. Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab Lil Haqq — "Wrath for the Truth" — a full-scale transfrontier military operation described as a hot-pursuit campaign against the Taliban [8]. Meanwhile, TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud ordered his fighters to intensify attacks in support of the Afghan Taliban, instructing them to post video evidence directly to social media without prior approval from the group's command structure [6].

The Civilian Toll

As the military operations escalated, it was Afghan civilians who bore the heaviest cost.

From late evening on February 26 through March 5, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) verified 185 civilian casualties: 56 killed and 129 injured due to indirect fire and aerial attacks. The most devastating finding: 55 percent of the recorded civilian casualties were women and children [9].

One incident stood out for its brutality. On February 27, airstrikes in the Barmal district of Paktika province killed 14 civilians — four women, two girls, five boys, and three men — and wounded six others [9]. A subsequent UN report found that Pakistan's airstrikes killed "mostly Afghan women and children" [10].

By mid-March, the total verified civilian toll had risen further. UNAMA reported that at least 75 civilians had been killed and 193 injured in Afghanistan as a result of the clashes since February 26 [5]. The Taliban government accused Pakistan of targeting homes in overnight airstrikes in Kabul, Kandahar, and other areas on March 13, saying at least six more civilians were killed and more than a dozen injured [11].

A Humanitarian Crisis Within a Humanitarian Crisis

The conflict exploded atop what was already one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies. Nearly half of Afghanistan's population — 21.9 million people — requires humanitarian assistance in 2026 [12]. During the current lean season, 17.4 million face crisis-level food insecurity or worse, with emergency hunger levels rising more than 50 percent compared to the previous year.

The fighting displaced nearly 66,000 people in eastern and southeastern Afghanistan, according to the UN [13]. Border operations at the critical Torkham and Bahramcha crossings were suspended due to security concerns, severing humanitarian access routes. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that restrictions on movement had "reduced the capacity of humanitarian agencies and partners to deliver life-saving and other assistance in the most-affected areas" [14].

The displacement crisis compounded an already staggering flow of Afghan returnees. Since October 2023, approximately 5.4 million Afghans have returned from neighboring countries — 2.9 million in 2025 alone [15]. A World Bank report found that this rapid population growth led to a four percent decline in GDP per capita in 2025, with the influx suppressing wages and overwhelming fragile labor markets.

And the funding picture is dire: the 2026 humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan stands at $1.71 billion, but as of March it was only 10 percent funded. UNHCR's $216 million response plan was just 8 percent funded [15].

The Durand Line: A Century-Old Wound

The current conflict cannot be understood without its historical substrate. The 2,600-kilometer Durand Line, drawn in 1893 by British diplomat Mortimer Durand and Afghan Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, bisects ethnic Pashtun territories and has never been recognized by any Afghan government — from the monarchy to the mujahideen to the Taliban [16]. Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan's admission to the United Nations in 1947.

Armed skirmishes along the border have occurred periodically since 1949, but the frequency and intensity have escalated dramatically since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. Pakistan accuses the Taliban of providing sanctuary to the TTP; the Taliban denies this and accuses Pakistan of violating Afghan sovereignty. The October 2025 border conflict — the largest since the Taliban takeover — killed at least 17 civilians before a ceasefire was brokered by Qatar and Turkey [16].

That ceasefire lasted four months.

The International Response

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk described the conflict as piling "misery on misery" and called on both sides to end hostilities immediately [17]. UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed "deep concern" and urged strict compliance with international humanitarian law. The International Committee of the Red Cross called for "restraint and de-escalation," emphasizing that humanitarian access is an obligation under international law [18].

India's response was notably sharp. The Ministry of External Affairs "strongly" condemned Pakistan's airstrikes, calling them "another attempt by Pakistan to externalise its internal failures" — a characterization that underscored the geopolitical dimensions of the crisis [18].

Russia offered to mediate, as did Turkey, whose President Erdogan made a ceasefire offer as border clashes entered their sixth day in early March [19]. But the most consequential diplomatic intervention came from Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message to Pakistan urging a halt to hostilities, delivered through Ambassador Jiang Zaidong in a meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. China's special envoy for Afghanistan affairs began shuttling between the two capitals [20].

By mid-March, neither side had reported Pakistani airstrikes in recent days, and ground fighting had tapered — though daily clashes continued along the border [20].

The Strategic Calculus

Analysts see Pakistan's escalation as driven by a convergence of factors. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) noted that Pakistan's declaration of "open war" reflected a fundamental breakdown in the assumption that the Taliban could be pressured into controlling the TTP through diplomatic channels [3]. The Chatham House think tank argued that de-escalation was urgently needed, warning that prolonged conflict would destabilize Pakistan's already fragile economy and further entrench the TTP's cross-border infrastructure [21].

For the Taliban, the crisis presents its own dilemma. The regime has consistently denied harboring TTP militants, but its inability — or unwillingness — to dismantle TTP operations on Afghan soil has eroded whatever trust existed with Islamabad. The Afghan Taliban's military response, including drone attacks and border assaults, demonstrated a willingness to fight that surprised some observers, but also risked drawing the regime into a sustained conventional conflict it cannot afford [6].

The population asymmetry is stark: Pakistan's 251 million people face off against Afghanistan's approximately 42.6 million, with Pakistan possessing a vastly larger and more sophisticated military apparatus. But Pakistan's own internal security challenges — from the TTP insurgency to separatist movements in Balochistan — mean that a protracted conflict would stretch resources already under immense strain.

What Comes Next

As of mid-March 2026, the conflict exists in an uneasy twilight — not quite at war, not quite at peace. Chinese mediation has reduced the intensity of fighting, but the underlying drivers remain unresolved. The TTP continues to operate from Afghan territory. Pakistan continues to view cross-border strikes as its prerogative. And Afghan civilians continue to die in the space between these two positions.

The humanitarian numbers tell the most urgent story: 75 civilians killed, 193 injured, 66,000 displaced, and a $1.71 billion aid appeal that is 90 percent unfunded [9][13][15]. For the 21.9 million Afghans already in need of assistance, this conflict is not an abstraction of geopolitics — it is the difference between survival and catastrophe.

The question now is whether the international community can sustain the diplomatic pressure needed to prevent a resumption of full-scale hostilities — and whether Pakistan and the Taliban can find a framework for addressing the TTP threat that does not require bombing civilian neighborhoods to do so.