What happened
Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire in the Bajaur sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday, 30 March 2026, security sources said, in a fresh border flare-up after the end of a temporary pause in fighting over Eidul Fitr.
Security sources told Dawn that Afghan Taliban fighters opened fire with “small and large weapons” at several points along the border district, and that Pakistan’s security forces “retaliated vigorously”. The retaliatory fire silenced the enemy’s guns and destroyed Afghan posts from which Pakistan had been fired upon, the sources said. Local security officials said Pakistan “did not target any civilian population, but only targeted those posts from which continuous firing was being done”.
Kabul gave a different account. A deputy spokesman for the Taliban administration, Hamdullah Fitrat, said mortars and other heavy weaponry struck rural areas and civilian homes on the outskirts of Asadabad in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province, killing at least one person and wounding 16, most of them women and children, according to The Associated Press. There was no immediate response from Pakistan to the accusation, and the military had not issued a formal statement.
Why it matters
The exchange tests the calm that followed the Eid pause in Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, which Pakistan launched on the night of 26 February 2026 after what it described as unprovoked cross-border attacks. The Foreign Office said the temporary pause had concluded and the operation would continue “until its objectives are achieved”, Dawn reported.
It also lands on the same weekend that Pakistan hosted the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt in Islamabad to discuss de-escalation of the wider US-Iran war, and as Islamabad positioned itself as a possible venue for US-Iran talks. The exchange revives the frontier that produced Pakistan’s declaration of “open war” and its February air strikes on Kabul and Kandahar (KhabarWire).
What is still uncertain
The two sides’ accounts of the trigger and of the casualties diverge, and there was no independent verification of either version. Kabul has not said officially whether it still considers the truce to be holding, Reuters reported. Pakistan and Afghanistan fought their most intense border clashes in years in February and March, before the Eid pause was announced at the request of Turkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a synthesis of published reporting, not eyewitness coverage. Sources were reviewed on 31 March 2026.
- Dawn — Security forces retaliate 'vigorously' after Afghan Taliban open fire in KP's Bajaur sector: sources30 March 2026 · Security-source account of the exchange, Pakistan's account of the trigger and targets, and the Foreign Office line on Operation Ghazab lil-Haq.
- Daily Times — Pakistan and Afghan forces clash in Bajaur30 March 2026 · Same-day Pakistani account confirming the exchange, the weapons used and Pakistan's claim that no civilian areas were targeted.
- Reuters (via ThePrint) — Pakistan, Afghanistan trade fire as Islamabad prepares to host US-Iran talks30 March 2026 · Wire report carrying Kabul's casualty claim in Kunar and the status of the expired Eid pause.
