What we know after latest escalation in Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions
ReutersPakistan has bombed areas in Afghanistan on Friday, after the Afghan Taliban earlier announced a major offensive against Pakistani military posts near the border.
It is the latest escalation of tensions between the neighbouring countries.
Afghanistan's Taliban government said it had launched an offensive on Pakistani military bases near the border on Thursday night.
Pakistan responded within hours, bombing targets in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the provinces of Kandahar and Paktika - Afghan provinces close to its 2,600km (1,615 miles) border.
Details are still emerging and the BBC has yet to confirm whether there are casualties on either side.
The bombings are the most significant development in the ongoing tensions between the two countries, which had agreed to a ceasefire last October following a week of deadly clashes.
Here is what we know so far.
What happened overnight?
The first reports began to surface on Thursday, 26 February.
An offensive was launched at 20:00 local time (15:30 GMT) along the border in the provinces of Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar, Khost, Paktia and Paktika, according to statements from Taliban officials.
Pakistan quickly retaliated, saying the Taliban had "miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations" across the border in its north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which had been met with an "immediate and effective response" by Islamabad's security forces.
It then launched a series of bombing raids on Afghanistan in the early hours of Friday morning, striking targets in Kabul and in border provinces.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Afghan Taliban spokesman, published - then subsequently deleted - a post on X that the group had launched strikes early on Friday on Pakistani military positions in Kandahar and Helmand, two provinces in Afghanistan.
The BBC has not yet managed to verify all the claims.
What effect has this had?
The Afghan Taliban has said it carried out air strikes on several targets within Pakistan on Friday morning. Sources in the Taliban government told the BBC these were with drones launched from Afghanistan.
A Pakistani military officer confirmed that Afghan Taliban drones targeted three locations - the army's artillery school in Nowshehra, one near a military academy in Abbottabad, and one that fell near a primary school in Swabi - but said all were destroyed.
These attacks are still unprecedented. Taliban fighters are thought to rely predominantly on commercially available drones carrying improvised explosives, making their range and targeting capabilities limited.
A spokesman for the Pakistani army said it had targeted 22 military sites across Afghanistan, including Kabul and Kandahar, and that "great care" had been taken to avoid civilian casualties.
He claimed that at least 274 Afghan Taliban fighters had been killed, with 73 posts inside Afghanistan destroyed and 18 captured. An estimated 115 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery systems were also destroyed, he said.
Twelve Pakistani soldiers had been killed, 27 others injured and one was missing in action, he said.
Afghan Taliban spokesman Mujahid said 13 Taliban fighters had been killed and 22 others injured, while 13 civilians had been injured and an indeterminate number killed.
He specifically said a farmer's home in Jalalabad had been bombed and the majority of his family killed, while a religious school in Paktika had also been attacked.
The Taliban spokesman said 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed, 23 of whose bodies had been taken back to Afghanistan. He also said others had been captured alive, while 19 bases had been destroyed.
What are countries saying?
As with previous rounds of hostilities between Pakistani and Afghan forces, each side has accused the other of attacking first - and both claim to have inflicted heavy losses on the other side.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country's forces were able to "crush" aggression, while its defence minister had declared "open war" on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban "will retaliate if we are attacked, but we won't start clashes at the moment", a Taliban military spokesperson told the BBC.
UN officials have called for an immediate de-escalation of the fighting, while Iran, which shares borders with both nations, has offered to mediate.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi noted it was currently Ramadan, "the month of self-restraint and strengthening of solidarity in the Islamic world".
China, which counts itself as friendly to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, called for a ceasefire, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning urging them to "remain calm and exercise restraint".
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper echoed calls for both sides to engage in mediated dialogue, adding that they should "take immediate steps toward de‑escalation" and "avoid further harm to civilians".
Afghan Taliban spokesman Mujahid said on Friday that "now too we want the issue to be resolved through dialogue".
Why is this happening?
The air strikes follow months of hostilities between the two countries. The last serious flare-up was in October, after which a fragile ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Qatar was reached.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan's Taliban government of supporting "anti-Pakistan terrorists" who it blames for carrying out suicide attacks in Pakistan, including a recent one at a mosque in Islamabad.
This is a claim disputed by the Taliban government, which has repeatedly said the territory of Afghanistan is not being used to threaten the security of other countries.
It, in turn, accuses Pakistan of carrying out unprovoked attacks in which civilians have been killed. Pakistan says it only targets militants.
Earlier this week, Pakistan launched multiple overnight air strikes on Afghanistan, which the Taliban has said killed at least 18 people, including women and children.
What makes this time different?
Outgunned by nuclear-armed Pakistan, analysts believe that it is unlikely for the Taliban to fight a conventional war with Pakistan. However, the Afghan Taliban has extensive experience in guerrilla warfare.
What makes the latest round of Pakistani strikes significant is that they have targeted Taliban government facilities instead of terrorist targets in Afghanistan, Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, told the BBC's Newsday programme.
"It's now targeting the regime itself," he said.
Meanwhile, rhetoric from the Taliban suggests it is committed to "staging relentless attacks" on Pakistan - a "precarious situation" that could lead to an actual conflict.
The Afghan Taliban's military chief, Qari Muhammad Fasihuddin, said in a video message on Friday that Pakistan could expect "an even more decisive response" in future.
The attacks on places like Abbottabad and Swabi show its ability to probe farther into Pakistan than previously thought.
Additional reporting by the BBC Afghan and Urdu teams
