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International calls for mediation are growing as Pakistan and Afghanistan engage in cross-border fighting for a third day, in the most serious flare-up in violence between the neighbours in months that Pakistan says has brought them into “open war”.

The European ⁠Union’s ⁠foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged on Saturday ⁠for the countries to bring down the temperature and enter talks, warning the violence could affect the wider region.

Iran, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, as well as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also urged de-escalation and mediation.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have said they are open to negotiations to bring an end to the conflict. But Pakistan on Saturday said there would be “no dialogue”, repeating its long-running demand that Afghanistan stop harbouring “terrorism”, an allegation Kabul denies.

“There won’t be any talks. There’s no dialogue. There’s no negotiation. Terrorism from Afghanistan has to end,” the Pakistani prime minister’s spokesperson for foreign media, Mosharraf Zaidi, told Pakistan TV, stressing that Pakistan’s responsibility was to protect its citizens and territory.

Meanwhile, tit-for-tat attacks occurred near the fraught border. Afghan media reported that Taliban forces fired drone attacks on Pakistani military camps in the border areas of Miranshah and Spinwam.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported a drone attack hit a mosque in the city of Bannu further south, injuring at least five people. And Pakistan TV said Pakistani forces waged their own attack targeting several positions of the Afghan Taliban.

The latest violence erupted after Pakistani air strikes on Afghan territory last weekend triggered retaliatory Afghan attacks stretching across six Pakistani districts on Thursday. In response, Pakistan carried out widespread aerial attacks in the early hours of Friday on the Afghan capital and two other areas, Kandahar and Paktia. It was Pakistan’s first air strikes on the southern power base of the Taliban authorities since they returned to power in 2021.

Both sides reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls. Pakistan said 12 of its soldiers and 274 Taliban ⁠were killed, while the Taliban said 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers died. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified by Al Jazeera.

The United States, which considers Pakistan a major non-NATO ally, said it backs Pakistan’s right to “defend itself against Taliban attacks”.

Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence within the country in recent years, including suicide bombings and coordinated assaults targeting security forces. Pakistani authorities blame the Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, for many of the attacks, and accuse Afghanistan of sheltering the group inside Afghanistan.

Kabul rejects the allegations and says it does not allow anyone to use Afghan soil for attacks on any country, including Pakistan.

The United States and Israel have launched an attack on Iran, with explosions heard and seen across Tehran and in other parts of the country, as apparent retaliatory explosions are hitting northern Israel and in Gulf Arab states.

Several missiles have struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, Fars news agency reported. Smoke was seen rising in the city, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground.

Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that explosions also occurred in Tehran’s northern Seyyed Khandan area. Other Iranian media reported attacks nationwide, including in the western Ilam province, while Israel’s military confirmed carrying out attacks in western Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the attacks targeted a range of military and defence targets, as well as civilian infrastructure, in various cities.

US President Donald Trump said the joint attacks are aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”.

“Short time ago, US military began major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime,” he said.

An Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran ⁠is preparing ⁠for retaliation that is set ⁠to be ⁠”crushing”. Iran is preparing to “take revenge” on Israel and deliver “strong response”, State TV reported.

A senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera that “all American and Israeli assets and interests in the Middle East have become a legitimate target” and that “there are no red lines after this aggression.”

Explosions in Israel, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait

Explosions rocked northern Israel as the country worked to intercept incoming Iranian missiles shortly after it launched the attack on Iran. The blasts echoed just after the Israeli military said it would be using its air defence systems to bring down the Iranian fire. There was no immediate word on any damage or casualties from the ongoing attack.

Shelter alerts were also heard in Qatar, whose Defence Ministry said an Iranian missile had been intercepted by the Patriot defence system. “It certainly is tense,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Doha. “We just heard alerts going off, warning of the threat of incoming missiles.”

Explosions also took place in Bahrain, which said the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet had been targeted by a missile attack. A loud explosion was heard in the United Arab Emirates’ capital Abu Dhabi, according to the Reuters news agency.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported explosions were heard in Kuwait. Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE have closed their airspace.

Muhanad Seloom, assistant professor in Critical Security Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera, said Iran wants to “raise the cost on these countries”, which all host US military assets.

“They are trying to draw other countries in the region into this war,” said Seloom. “They want to raise the cost for these countries, with the hope probably that these countries will pressure the US administration to stop this war.”

‘Joint US-Israeli action’

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks on Iran aimed to remove an “existential threat”. Netanyahu projected that “joint action” by Israel and the US “will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands” and praised Trump for his “historic leadership”.

A US official told Al Jazeera earlier that the attacks were carried out as a joint military operation between Israel and the US, which has assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region to try to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear programme. A US official told Reuters that attacks were being carried out by air and sea.

One of the areas targeted in Iran’s capital was near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reported The Associated Press. Khamenei is not in Tehran and has been transferred to a secure location, according to an official quoted by Reuters.

Al Jazeera’s Maziar Motamedi, reporting from Tehran, said cellphone communications have been disrupted in several areas of the capital. “No calls are possible at present,” he said.

Sirens in Israel

As sirens sounded and a state of emergency was declared in Israel, the Israeli military said it had issued a “proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the state of Israel”.

The Israel Airports Authority announced its airspace had been closed to all civilian flights and urged the public not to come to the airport.

Meanwhile, the ⁠US embassy in Qatar ⁠implemented shelter-in-place for ⁠all personnel, recommending that all of ‌its citizens do the same until further notice. Iraq’s Ministry of Transport said ⁠it had closed its national airspace.

According to an Israeli defence official quoted by Reuters, the attacks had been planned for months and the ⁠launch date ⁠decided ⁠weeks ago, even as the US and Iran carried out negotiations.

Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian studies unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel “appears to have launched an attack designed to derail the negotiations”.

At least 20 people have been killed and more than 30 injured after a Bolivian Air Force Hercules transport plane, carrying a cargo of newly printed banknotes, crashed onto a busy highway while attempting to land in bad weather near the capital, La Paz.

The military plane was attempting to land on Friday evening at El Alto International Airport when it skidded off the runway and ploughed into a nearby road, local authorities said.

“There are about 20, maybe a few more,” Police Colonel Rene Tambo, head of the police homicide division in El Alto, said of the number of people killed.

Defence Minister Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 “landed and veered off the runway” and came to a stop in a field.

Firefighters responding to the crash successfully extinguished a fire that broke out, the minister said, noting that the cause of the crash remains under investigation.

“A heavy hailstorm” was falling and “there was lightning” when the plane went down, Cristina Choque, a 60-year-old vendor whose car was struck by plane wreckage, told the AFP news agency.

Footage shared on social media showed chaotic scenes as crowds gathered at the crash site.

Some people appeared to collect banknotes scattered among debris from the aircraft, the wrecked vehicles and the bodies of victims.

Authorities used water hoses and tear gas to push back onlookers and looters.

The Ministry of Defence, in a statement, said later that “the money transported in the crashed aircraft has no official serial number… therefore it has no legal or purchasing power”.

The ministry also warned that the “collection, possession, or use” of the money “constitutes a crime”.

Bolivian Air Force General Sergio Lora said that two of the six crew members of the aircraft were still unaccounted for.

The central bank was expected to brief reporters later on Friday regarding the stricken plane’s cargo.

Bolivia’s La Paz, situated at an altitude of 3,650 metres (11,975 feet) and surrounded by Andean mountain peaks, is the highest administrative capital in the world.