ISLAMABAD, February 27. /TASS/. Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif warned that from now on, his country and the Taliban government of Afghanistan are in the state of an "open confrontation."

"Our patience has reached its limit. Now it is open confrontation. Now there will be decisive action," he wrote on the X social network, adding that the Pakistani military knows its opponent well.

Asif accused the government in Kabul of turning Afghanistan "into a colony of India," of exporting terrorism and mistreating its own people. "They deprived their own people of basic human rights. They took away from women the rights that Islam grants them," he said.

Clashes erupted on the Afghan-Pakistani border on Thursday evening. Kabul said that Afghanistan was conducting a military operation in response to Pakistan’s recent air strikes on the Afghan territory. Islamabad said its forces had destroyed Afghan fortifications and military vehicles in retaliation. According to the Media Today portal, border clashes still continue. The Pakistani army is using firearms, artillery and strike drones.

Pakistan’s ministry of information and broadcasting said on February 22 that the country’s military had delivered targeted strikes on positions of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan militants and the Islamic State’s Khorasan Wilayah branch, both of which are designated terrorist organizations banned in Russia. According to the ministry, the operation was a response to the recent terror attacks in Pakistan, including the explosion in an Islamabad mosque.

The Afghan authorities said dozens of civilians were killed as a result of the Pakistani attack, which they described as "an act of provocation," adding that the country reserves the right to respond to "infringements on territorial integrity."