What we know after latest escalation in Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions

Pakistan has bombed areas in Afghanistan on Friday, after the Afghan Taliban earlier announced a major offensive against Pakistani military posts near the border.

It is the latest escalation of tensions between the neighbouring countries.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government said it had launched an offensive on Pakistani military bases near the border on Thursday night.

Pakistan responded within hours, bombing targets in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the provinces of Kandahar and Paktika – Afghan provinces close to its 2,600 km (1,615 miles) border.

Details are still emerging and the BBC has yet to confirm whether there are casualties on either side.

The bombings are the most significant development in the ongoing tensions between the two countries, which had agreed to a ceasefire last October following a week of deadly clashes.

What happened overnight?

An offensive was launched at 20:00 local time (15:30 GMT) along the border in the provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar, Khost, Paktia and Paktika, according to statements from Taliban officials.

Pakistan quickly retaliated, saying the Taliban had “miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations” across the border in its north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which had been met with an “immediate and effective response” by Islamabad’s security forces.

It then launched a series of bombing raids on Afghanistan in the early hours of Friday morning, striking targets in Kabul and in border provinces.

Further outbreaks of violence were reported near the key Torkham border crossing, which sits between Peshawar and Jalalabad, by AFP journalists at the scene.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Afghan Taliban spokesman, published – then subsequently deleted – a post on X that the group had launched strikes early on Friday on Pakistani military positions in Kandahar and Helmand, two provinces in Afghanistan.