Clashes between Taliban forces and Pakistani troops entered their 12th day on Monday, with both sides trading claims of casualties and battlefield gains along the border.
Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesperson for the Taliban’s 201 Khalid bin Walid Corps, said Taliban forces destroyed a Pakistani border outpost in the Goshta district of eastern Nangarhar province in the east.
He said the outpost was destroyed using SPG-9 recoilless rifle fire in a border area of the district.
Pakistani officials have not commented on the claim.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said in a post on X that 583 members of the Taliban had been killed in the border clashes so far.
Tarar also claimed that 795 Taliban fighters had been wounded and that 242 Taliban checkpoints had been destroyed.
He said Pakistani forces had seized 38 Taliban outposts and destroyed 213 Taliban armored vehicles during the fighting.
Tarar also claimed that Pakistani military airstrikes had targeted 64 locations in Afghanistan since the start of the attacks.
The Taliban have not responded to the Pakistani minister’s latest claims.
However, the Taliban Defense Ministry has said that at least 327 Pakistani troops have been killed in the border clashes so far.
The clashes started on Feb. 26 when the Taliban launched attacks on Pakistan border forces, calling it retaliatory operation. Pakistan responded back on the same night with airstrikes in different parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul. Heavy clashes were reported in at least six border provinces between the two sides in the first 10 days of the fighting. However, less confrontations were reported over the past weekend.
Countries in the region have called for dialogue between the two sides to end the fighting.
