Pakistan has declared open war on the Afghan Taliban, launching airstrikes on Kabul, Kandahar, and other key targets after Taliban forces attacked border posts in a major escalation along the disputed Durand Line.

A new war between Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban leadership is quickly undoing months of Central Asian diplomacy aimed at establishing vital trade routes to seaports through the two nations.

The airstrikes came hours after Afghan troops had attacked Pakistani border positions and follow months of worsening relations between the neighboring countries.

Islamabad says its airstrikes, which have at times targeted the Taliban government, aim to stop militants using Afghan territory to attack Pakistan.

Pakistan says it has killed hundreds of fighters in Afghanistan after declaring “open war” on the Taliban. On Friday, Pakistan launched air strikes on Kabul and two other Afghan provinces, which it said targeted ammunition depots, Taliban military installations and militant hideouts.

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.

Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir on Wednesday said that peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan could only prevail if the Taliban regime “renounced their support for terrorism and terrorist organisations”.

Pakistan has been the Afghan Taliban’s closest friend for decades. It was Islamabad that helped give birth to the Taliban in the early 1990s – as a way to give Pakistan "strategic depth" in its rivalry with India.

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

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have issued a draconian decree that makes sodomy punishable by death and allows men to beat their wives so long as they don’t break bones or leave visible, lasting wounds.