Afghan and Pakistani delegations in Doha for crisis talks
[October 18, 2025]
By RIAZAT BUTT
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan and Pakistani delegations arrived in the Qatari
capital, Doha, on Saturday, hoping to defuse the deadliest crisis
between them in several years after more than a week of fighting killed
dozens of people and injured hundreds on both sides.
Both governments have sent their defense ministers to lead the talks,
which, Pakistan said, would focus on “immediate measures to end
cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and restore peace and
stability along the border.”
Each country says it is responding to aggression from the other.
Afghanistan denies harboring militants who carry out attacks in border
areas.
Regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have called for calm,
as the violence threatened to further destabilize a region where groups
including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida are trying to resurface.
A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired Friday
evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.
Pakistani security officials confirmed to The Associated Press that
there were strikes on two districts in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika
province.
The targets were hideouts of the militant Hafiz Gul Bahadur group,
according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to talk to the media. One said the operation
was a direct response to the suicide bombing of a security forces
compound in Mir Ali, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province a day
earlier.
The Pakistani Air Force raids killed dozens of armed fighters and there
were no civilian deaths, they said.
But Afghan officials said the aerial assaults killed at least 10
civilians, including women, children and local cricketers. The attacks
prompted the national cricket board to boycott an upcoming series in
Pakistan.
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Locals dig graves for people killed in a cross-border airstrike by
the Pakistani army in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province,
Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Shafiqullah Mashaal)
On Saturday, several thousand people attended funeral prayers in
Paktika. They sat in the open air as loudspeakers broadcast sermons
and condemnation.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, in a
statement, criticized the “repeated crimes of Pakistani forces and
the violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.”
Such acts were deemed provocative and viewed as “deliberate
attempts” to prolong the conflict, he added.
The two countries share a 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border known
as the Durand Line, but Afghanistan has never recognized it.
Pakistan is grappling with surging militancy, especially in areas
bordering Afghanistan. It also accuses its nuclear-armed neighbor
and rival India of backing armed groups, without providing any
evidence.
Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, urged Afghans to choose “mutual
security over perpetual violence and progress over hardline
obscurantism.”
“The Taliban must rein in the proxies who have sanctuaries in
Afghanistan,” he told an audience on Saturday at the Pakistan
Military Academy in Kakul, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
___
Associated Press writers Abdul Qahar Afghan in Jalalabad,
Afghanistan, Sajjad Tarakzai in Islamabad, and Riaz Khan, in
Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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