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KABUL: Abdul Rahim surveys the rubble that was his home in Kabul, where he lived with six family members.

A gaping hole in the living room reveals only charred belongings and debris, while blackened teddy bears and makeup lie in what once was a bedroom.

The explosion at his home was one of four that hit the Afghan capital within a week, as unusually intense violence broke out with Pakistan — then suddenly halted under a temporary truce.

The fighting — which has left dozens of troops and civilians dead on both sides, mostly in border regions — represents the worst clashes between the neighbors since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

“We were attending a graduation ceremony when I learned that an explosion had struck my house around 4:00 pm,” Rahim, a motorcycle vendor, tells AFP.

Two explosions occurred Wednesday afternoon following aerial bombardments, according to Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran. The strikes plunged central Kabul into terror.

Pakistani security sources meanwhile said they carried out “precision strikes” against an armed group.

Stunned residents have been clearing the rubble, hoping the ceasefire will hold.

“When I returned, I saw shattered windows, injured people lying on the road, and several dead,” says Rahim, now forced to live with relatives.

“War is not a solution — we hope for dialogue,” he pleads.

Next door, a yellow-walled school has also been gutted.

‘NOT A SOLUTION’

At least five dead and 35 injured were transported to a Kabul hospital Wednesday afternoon, according to Italian NGO EMERGENCY, which runs the facility.

No official death toll has been released.

Passersby stop to stare at the devastation, kept at a distance by security cordons and numerous personnel.

Three hundred meters away, a market in a residential area was also hit, with videos shared by local media showing a fireball engulfing the neighborhood.

Next to a tall building where at least seven stories can be seen charred, Safiullah Hamidi, a 21-year-old student says his uncle’s apartment was among those impacted.

“Pakistan should fight with our army if they want a confrontation, but not by bombing civilians,” he says.

Nearby, Samir Ousmani gathers up metal bars littering his car wash station, almost entirely destroyed.

“One of my employees was killed, and two others, along with my uncle, were injured,” reports the 22-year-old.

HOLDING THEIR BREATH

At the border, where the clashes have been concentrated, residents who had fled are returning home.

“Stores have reopened, and everyone is going about their business, but the border is still closed,” says Naqibullah, a 35-year-old merchant in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province.

The death toll continues to mount.

In the border town, 40 civilians were killed Wednesday in exchanges of fire with the Pakistani army, according to local health authorities.

The UN recorded 37 civilians killed and 425 injured in recent days on the Afghan side.

“Yesterday, the situation was terrible because of the war. I hope it doesn’t resume because there have already been too many victims,” says Aminullah, 22.

Islamabad said the temporary truce would last 48 hours, which ends on Friday evening.

“We are waiting to see what happens tomorrow,” says Shamsullah, 36, a biryani vendor.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Thursday that for the truce to endure, the ball was “in the court” of the Taliban government.

Kabul has not immediately commented.

ISLAMABAD: The leader of the Pakistani Taliban appeared in a video Thursday to prove he was still alive, a week after an apparent attempt to assassinate him with an airstrike in Afghanistan provoked the most serious clash between the neighbors in decades.

The airstrike on October 9 hit an armored Toyota Land Cruiser believed to be carrying Noor Wali Mehsud in the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to Pakistani security officials.

After days of deadly violence, an uneasy ceasefire took hold on Wednesday. But with confirmation that Mehsud is still alive, Pakistan’s main grievance against its neighbor endures: Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of sheltering a militant leader and his senior lieutenants it blames for directing near-daily attacks in Pakistan.

Mehsud said in the video that he was appearing to refute reports of his death. Pakistani security officials and militants had previously assessed that he had probably survived.

“Jihad brings nations freedom and dignity; otherwise they remain slaves,” Mehsud said.

Pakistan has not officially claimed responsibility for the airstrike, the first in Kabul since the successful 2022 US targeting of Al Qaeda leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

The Afghan Taliban deny harboring Pakistani militants and, in turn, accuse Islamabad of sheltering the local branch of Daesh, their main armed rival.

Mehsud, in the video, said he was in Pakistan. The footage was shot on a hilltop; Reuters could not verify the location.

REVIVAL UNDER HIS LEADERSHIP

Mehsud took over the leadership of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2018 after his three predecessors were killed by US drone strikes. By then, Pakistani army operations had largely driven the group out of their former strongholds and into Afghanistan.

He has revived the group, transformed its strategy and united warring factions with diplomatic skill, analysts say. Trained as a religious scholar, he also took up an ideological battle.

The Taliban’s 2021 takeover in Afghanistan gave the TTP freer movement and greater access to weapons, Islamabad says, and attacks inside Pakistan escalated — especially in the northwest bordering Afghanistan.

In the past, the TTP struck civilian targets, like mosques and markets, including killing more than 130 children in a 2014 school assault. Mehsud, concerned these attacks caused public revulsion in Pakistan, directed the group to target only military and police.

In a rare video speech released earlier this year, he portrayed Pakistan’s army as anti-Islam, criticized its role in politics, and said the generals had “hijacked the people of Pakistan for the last 78 years.”

Pakistan’s military says that the TTP has perverted Islam and that it is supported by the country’s adversary India, a charge that New Delhi denies.

TRIBAL INSURRECTION

Mehsud fuses religious justification with nationalism. He is the author of at least three books, including a 700-page treatise that traces the origins of the group’s insurrection to the struggle against British colonial rule.

Abdul Sayed, an independent expert on the region’s militancy, said Mehsud claims to speak for the Pashtun ethnic group that lives in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Mehsud continues his efforts to reshape the group into an armed movement fighting, as he claims, for the rights of Pashtun tribespeople,” said Sayed. “In pursuit of a government system similar to that of the Afghan Taliban.”

Yet the TTP has negligible public support in the northwest or elsewhere in the country, analysts say.

In unofficial talks with the Pakistani authorities in recent days, held through tribal intermediaries, the militants demanded the imposition of their brand of Islamic law in the part of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, the exit of the army from that region, and their return there.

The authorities refused.