Pakistan bombed Afghan cities, including the capital Kabul, on Friday, AFP reported.

This came hours after the Afghan Taliban conducted a retaliatory attack on Pakistani border posts.

The Taliban said that its attack on the outposts was in retaliation to deadly Pakistani air strikes on Sunday.

Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that Pakistan had carried out air strikes in parts of Kabul, Kandahar and the Paktia province. There had been no reported casualties, he said on social media.

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Blasts and the noise of jets overhead were heard in Kabul and Kandahar over a period of two hours, AFP reported.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was quoted by the news agency as having declared that the neighbours were now at an “open war”, adding that “our patience has reached its limit”.

Relations between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan have worsened in recent months following border skirmishes in October that killed more than 70 persons on both sides. Their land border has remained largely closed since the clashes.

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Islamabad has accused the Afghan Taliban of not acting against militant groups that allegedly operate in its territory and carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Taliban has denied the claims.

Several rounds of negotiations, mediated mainly by Qatar, after an initial ceasefire have not led to lasting peace.

Dozens of soldiers have died in the recent round of clashes along the border, AFP quoted the two sides as saying.

On Thursday night, Mujahid had said that the Taliban was conducting “large-scale offensive operations” along the border “in response to repeated violations by the Pakistani military”.

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Hours later, he claimed that several Pakistan military posts had been captured across sectors. A “large number of the enemy’s soldiers have been killed and wounded, and some have been captured alive”, he claimed.

AFP quoted the Pakistani prime minister’s office as having denied that its soldiers had been captured.

The Afghan defence ministry reported eight of its soldiers had been killed in the fighting, AFP reported.


Also read: Explained: The fragile truce between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban