The fragile line between Pakistan and Afghanistan is once again a war zone, after a new round of cross‑border airstrikes, rocket attacks and artillery duels plunged the frontier into crisis and sent shockwaves across South and Central Asia.

Pakistani jets launched pre‑dawn strikes on what Islamabad calls “terrorist safe havens” just inside Afghan territory, claiming to target groups responsible for a string of deadly bombings in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Afghan authorities accuse Pakistan of hitting civilian areas instead, reporting dozens of casualties and releasing images of shattered homes and crowded emergency wards.

Within hours, Afghan forces and allied militias fired back with mortars and rockets toward Pakistani outposts, sparking firefights that raged for hours around key border crossings. Local officials on both sides report villages emptied in panic, with families fleeing under cover of darkness toward already overstretched refugee camps.

In Islamabad, military spokesmen insist Pakistan has the “right and obligation” to strike militant groups sheltering across the line, warning that “patience has limits.” Kabul’s leadership, in turn, has ordered full combat readiness along the border and vowed that any future incursion will be met with “immediate and painful retaliation.”

Regional powers are scrambling to contain the fallout. China, Iran, and the United States are urging restraint, alarmed that tit‑for‑tat strikes between two chronically unstable neighbors could spiral into a wider conflict — one that might pull in extremists, choke trade routes and unleash a fresh wave of displacement in a region already on edge.