Pakistan and Afghanistan have exchanged drone strikes, mortar fire and artillery along their border again this week, in a third round of clashes since October 19 that has kept the frontier largely shut and trade between the two neighbours in freefall, according to reports by China's Xinhua news agency and FDD's Long War Journal.

Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence said Pakistani forces carried out four separate drone strikes on Tuesday against a border commissariat and nearby security installations in the southeastern province of Paktika, Xinhua reported. The ministry said Afghan forces stationed nearby retaliated with artillery and heavy-weapons strikes on a major Pakistani military base and several border outposts, and claimed the response inflicted substantial casualties and damage — a claim Pakistan had not officially answered at the time of the reports.

Source: Xinhua via Asian Lite

The fighting was not confined to one sector. Xinhua reported that two people were killed and two injured by gunfire from Pakistani territory on Wednesday near the Torkham border crossing in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, while Pakistan's border service said one person was killed and five injured when Afghan forces fired mortars into the Lower South Waziristan district of northwestern Pakistan. Pakistani officials separately said a mortar that struck a family's home in that district killed one civilian and wounded five, the Long War Journal reported.

Source: Xinhua via AzerNews

Intermittent fighting was also reported on Wednesday at Torkham, the main crossing between the two countries, where a child and an aid organisation employee were reportedly wounded, according to Afghan media reports cited by the Long War Journal. Both sides blame each other for starting each exchange, and neither side's casualty figures have been independently verified.

A border that has stayed closed, and trade down 95%

Relations between the former allies have deteriorated steadily since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul. Pakistan accuses the Taliban of giving sanctuary to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups that attack inside Pakistan — an accusation Kabul denies. The latest round of fighting follows a September 18 suicide attack in northwestern Pakistan claimed by a TTP-linked alliance that killed 31 people, and comes months after Pakistan's Defence Minister Khwaja Muhammad Asif declared an “open war” following border clashes in late February, the Long War Journal reported.

Source: FDD's Long War Journal

For ordinary people on both sides, the cost is already visible: border crossings have remained mostly closed and bilateral trade has fallen 95 percent in fiscal year 2026 compared with the previous year, according to figures from the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan cited by the Long War Journal — a collapse that hits the traders, truckers and families who live off the Torkham and other crossings. Separately, The New York Times reported on October 24 that Pakistani military and intelligence officials had met anti-Taliban resistance groups in recent months; Pakistan denied the report.