Pakistan’s president is defending cross-border strikes in Afghanistan and urges the Taliban government to disarm militants attacking his country.

Afghan forces seize key Pakistani military posts along the Durand Line as cross-border hostilities enter a fifth day.

Afghan officials said they had thwarted a Pakistani airstrike on the former U.S. base, Bagram airfield, amid an intensifying campaign that has targeted dozens of military sites across the country.

When Pakistan attacked Bagram airbase outside Kabul on Sunday, it marked an escalation of its war against Afghanistan and the Taliban administration that has been in place since the United States’s hurried withdrawal in 2021.

Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbor, has also carried out expulsions, further straining resources in impoverished Afghanistan. The U.N.’s refugee agency says a total of 5.4 million people have returned to the country since October 2023, mostly from Pakistan and Iran.

Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan showed its overwhelming superiority in conventional warfare, but the Taliban have refined a lethal repertoire of guerrilla tactics.

According to the ministry, the operations were conducted by the 203 Mansouri, 201 Silab, and 205 Al-Badr Corps, resulting not only in fatalities but also in injuries to 10 Pakistani soldiers and the destruction of four military outposts.