Over the course of the evening of Feb. 26 into the morning of Feb. 27, the casualties inflicted in military combat, involving regular army units, aircraft, and heavy weapons of Pakistan and Afghanistan, were reportedly heavy on both sides. Each side claims their attacks were in response to attacks from the other side; each claims larger losses were inflicted on the other party than the other party admits. No one disputes that the fighting was serious. Pakistan launched airstrikes on Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and in two provinces, and Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif wrote on X that “our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open war between us and you.” Russian news service TASS cited Afghanistan’s Ariana News TV report that the Afghan armed forces had struck a “nuclear facility” and a military base in the Kakul village where the Pakistan Military Academy is located.
This was not the first military clash between the two nations. Beyond the immediate incidents cited in each specific case, why have these two nations been at loggerheads periodically over years? Underlying the constant foreign geopolitical meddling provoking trouble is the dispute over the stretch of their international border that carries the name of the British overlord who drew it in 1893, one Sir Mortimer Durand.
The Russian Security Council issued a statement on Feb. 27, naming precisely that British role. “This round of tension is clearly a consequence of England’s harmful colonial policy and the arbitrary borders drawn by London,” the Security Council charged. “Today, as the British try to create new dividing lines in the world, London’s imperial ambitions must be stopped.” The Security Council expressed Russia’s “concern about the dangerous escalation on the Afghan-Pakistani border,” and urged “the parties to resolve the existing conflicts as soon as possible through political and diplomatic means.”
