By A Correspondent

New Delhi: Afghanistan has hit the Nur Khan air base near Rawalpindi inside Pakistan, the same air base destroyed in Indian air strikes in May 2025 Operation Sindoor that forced Islamabad to make the ceasefire phone call to the Indian Army on the hotline.

Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry on March 2, 2026, said its air force carried out “precise and coordinated” strikes on multiple Pakistani military installations, including the Nur Khan air base.

The Afghan military action, the Defence Ministry said, was a retaliation for the recent Pakistan air strikes in Kabul and Bagram, which Islamabad misrepresented as action against terrorist groups, but killed several Afghan civilians.

Like during the Operation Sindoor operations by India, Pakistan maintained stoic silence on the Afghanistan air strikes on its key air base.

Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, said the strikes were coordinated on several Pakistani military installations. A post by the Afghan Defence Ministry on the X platform said its air force hit several Pakistani military sites in a single coordinated operation.

Rawalpindi, the Pakistani Army headquarters, was in for a special targeting by the Afghan air force during the operations, along with the 12th Division headquarters in Quetta in Balochistan, and the Khwazai Camp in Mohmand Agency of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region.

Several other significant Pakistan military facilities and command centres also came under the Afghan air strikes, the information flowing from Kabul said.

“Based on preliminary assessments, the strikes successfully caused significant damage to the intended targets. These operations were carried out in response to the recent aerial incursions by the Pakistani military, which struck Kabul, Bagram,” the Afghan Defence Ministry said in its X post.

The ministry also warned that any more such “acts of aggression” by the Pakistan military would only further aggravate the Afghan retaliation.

Pakistan military actions would be met with “a swift, decisive, and proportionate response,” the ministry warned.

India had hit the Nur Khan air base, a key Pakistan Air Force installation near Rawalpindi, in May 2025, which had been targeted earlier during India’s Operation Sindoor.

The Indian strike had damaged key military installations at the Nur Khan air base, and Pakistan had only recently repaired and restored the air base to its full operational status.

Afghanistan has inflicted fresh destruction at the Nur Khan air base, bringing the military facility back in focus. But the Afghan Taliban retaliation has also escalated the military conflict further with Pakistan.

The military tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan turned worse from bad in recent days after the Pakistani Air Force had targeted locations within Afghanistan on Friday (February 27, 2026), citing its actions against the Pakistani Taliban, claiming that the Afghan Taliban was providing the military group leaders a haven.

Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had alleged that Afghanistan Taliban was acting as India’s “proxy,” a charge vehemently denied by both Kabul and New Delhi, and instead asking Islamabad to look within for its failures.

The latest military conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, is fast deteriorating into a major military conflict that could pull India into the quagmire started by Islamabad.

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