Border clashes between Taliban and Pakistan

Feature image source: TOLOnews

On 4 September 2024, Afghan media outlets reported that a clash broke out between Pakistan and Taliban border guards along the Khost-Kurram border, on the Durand Line. These reports indicate that skirmishes continued intermittently until 9 September 2024. AW note that this is not the first instance of conflict between the two sides; they have clashed multiple times since the Taliban assumed power in 2021.  

On 9 September 2024, Mawlawi Shabir Ahmad Osmani, the Taliban’s Director of Information and Culture for Khost province, told state media that the conflict began when Pakistani forces opened fire on Taliban personnel conducting construction work for a new checkpoint on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. He confirmed that one Taliban member was killed, and four civilians were injured. Osmani also reported that five Pakistani security forces members were killed during the clashes. 

Pro-Taliban accounts on X (formerly Twitter), however, provided more detailed information regarding the clashes, identifying two Taliban casualties. These accounts confirmed the deaths of two Taliban members, Shafiullah, alias Rahbar, and Hafiz Herat, also known as Zubair, and the injury of another during the clashes.

However, Pakistani state media, as reported by Anadolu News Agency, claimed that eight Taliban members, including two commanders, Khalil and Jan Muhammad, were killed, while 16 others were injured in the clashes. AW note that the names of the Taliban commanders reportedly killed in the clashes, as reported by Pakistani media, do not match the names confirmed by pro-Taliban sources.

Citing unnamed security sources, state-affiliated outlets claimed that Pakistani forces “befittingly” retaliated against alleged shelling and gunfire from Afghan border guards, holding the Afghan side responsible for initiating the confrontation. Farzana Shah, a pro-Pakistan journalist specialising in security issues, reported that “five Pakistani Security Forces personnel, including a Captain rank officer, have been injured as Border guards of IEA regime targeted Pakistani territory.”

Dissemination of online disinformation

The propaganda battle between pro-Taliban and pro-Pakistan accounts extended beyond casualty figures and involved the dissemination of disinformation. 

On 8 September 2024, pro-Pakistan propaganda accounts circulated a photo of a burning vehicle, falsely claiming it was a Soviet-made T-62 tank belonging to the Taliban that had been targeted and destroyed by Pakistani border forces in Khost. AW determined that the photo originated from the war in Ukraine, and had been previously posted on 7 April 2022, by the Ukraine Weapons Tracker on X.

On 8 September 2024, several pro-Taliban accounts posted a photo showing the bodies of six uniformed soldiers, claiming that the Taliban had killed 14 Pakistani soldiers during the border clash in Khost. However, AW determined that the photo was from May 2016, reportedly depicting six Assam Rifles personnel killed in an ambush by suspected militants in northeastern India.

AW note that another video, shared by pro-Taliban accounts, allegedly depicting the recent border clash between the Taliban and Pakistani border guards, was also not related to the incident, having been posted on 16 June 2023 by The Khorasan Diary.