Since February 2026, Pakistan and the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan have been engaged in the most sustained cross-border conflict between the two countries since the Taliban's 2021 return to power in Afghanistan. The conflict began with Pakistani airstrikes on alleged Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and Islamic State – Khorasan Province camps in eastern Afghanistan, and escalated within a week into what Pakistan's defence minister, Khawaja Asif, called an "open war" fought under the codename Operation Ghazab lil-Haq.