Taliban reports ceasefire with Pakistan after unprecedented clashes

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Afghanistan's Taliban rulers announced that a ceasefire with neighboring Pakistan would go into effect Wednesday, after a second eruption of cross-border violence in less than a week that has left dozens of people dead and injured and seen Pakistan carry out unprecedented airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a social media post that at least 12 civilians were killed and more than 100 others wounded in cross-border attacks by Pakistani security forces along the border in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province. An international medical charity said at least five people were killed Wednesday amid explosions in Kabul, but the cause of the blasts could not be immediately confirmed.

Mujahid said Taliban forces responded on Wednesday, killing several "invading Pakistani soldiers."

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said Wednesday that it had recorded "scores of killed and injured Afghan civilians as a result of recent cross-border clashes," adding that it was still working "to determine the full scale of civilian harm."

The agency called "on all parties for an immediate end to hostilities to protect civilians and prevent further loss of life."

Mujahid said that under the ceasefire agreement, the fighting would stop, "at the request and insistence of the Pakistani side," at 5:30 p.m. local time (which was 8:30 a.m. Eastern). He said the Taliban had instructed all of its forces to observe the ceasefire, "as long as no one commits an act of aggression."

Speaking to a Taliban-controlled radio television network, Afghan regional army commander Mullah Gulbuddin Ilyas accused Pakistani soldiers of initiating the latest episode of violence.

In a statement, Pakistan's army rejected "insinuations that the attack was initiated by Pakistan," calling them "outrageous and blatant lies."

"The Armed Forces stand resolute and fully prepared to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. All acts of aggression against Pakistan will be responded to with full force," the army said.

Clashes erupt again near AfghanistanPakistan border

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan's de-facto Taliban government have deteriorated since the Taliban retook control of the country in the summer of 2021.

The tension escalated on Oct. 9, when the Pakistani air force carried out its first airstrikes in Kabul. The Taliban said Pakistan's air force struck inside Kabul again on Wednesday, destroying a home, before the ceasefire came into effect. There was no immediate word on casualties from that strike.

The international medical charity Emergency said in a statement Wednesday, however, that a facility it runs in Kabul had admitted at least 40 people with "shrapnel wounds, blunt force trauma and burns. Ten are in critical condition. Unfortunately, five people were already dead on arrival. The numbers of dead and injured are still provisional."

"We started receiving ambulances filled with wounded people, and we learned that there had been explosions a few kilometres away from our hospital," Emergency's country director in Afghanistan, Dejan Panic, said in a statement, adding that women and children were among the wounded.

Emergency did not speculate about what had caused the casualties, and the Taliban also reported the explosion of a fuel tanker in the capital on Wednesday, seemingly unrelated to the Pakistani strikes.

Pakistan said after its first airstrikes that it took the action because the Taliban was providing sanctuary and support for members of Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistani, or the TTP, often referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, inside Afghanistan. The TTP has staged deadly attacks targeting Pakistani security forces and civilians for years.

The Taliban launched a retaliatory offensive against Pakistani positions along the border on Oct. 11, and the violence continued sporadically until Wednesday afternoon.