FRAGILE CEASEFIRE: The border between the two neighbors remains closed, but Pakistan said it would reopen the frontier for aid deliveries despite the latest clash
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AFP, KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
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An overnight exchange of fire at one of the main Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossings killed four civilians, an Afghan official said yesterday, in the latest flare-up since deadly clashes in October.
Four others were wounded, Spin Boldak district governor Abdul Karim Jahad said.
The local hospital at the Pakistani border town of Chaman said three people had been discharged after getting minor injuries during the clash.
An armored Pakistani vehicle idles at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Chaman yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Each side accused the other of launching “unprovoked” attacks at the crossing between Chaman and Spin Boldak, despite a truce.
“Unfortunately, tonight, the Pakistani side started attacking Afghanistan in Kandahar, Spin Boldak district, and the forces of the Islamic Emirate were forced to respond,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X on Friday.
Pakistan said it was Afghanistan that had fired first.
“A short while ago, the Afghan Taliban regime resorted to unprovoked firing” along the border, said Mosharraf Zaidi, a spokesman for Pakistan’s prime minister.
“An immediate, befitting and intense response has been given by our armed forces,” he added.
Residents on the Afghan side of the border said the exchange of fire broke out at about 10:30pm and lasted about two hours.
Kandahar information department head Ali Mohammed Haqma said Pakistan forces attacked with “light and heavy artillery,” and that mortar fire had struck civilian homes.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute since the Taliban authorities retook control in Kabul in 2021.
Security issues are at the heart of the controversy, with Islamabad accusing Kabul of harboring militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, that launch attacks on its soil.
The Taliban government in Kabul denies the allegations.
More than 70 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the October clashes.
That fighting ended with a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey, but several subsequent rounds of talks in Doha and Istanbul have failed to produce a lasting deal, and the border between the two South Asian neighbors remains closed.
Kabul last month accused Islamabad of air strikes in a border area that killed 10 people, nine of them children.
Pakistan denied the claim.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday last week said that in light of “major” attacks on its soil, “the ceasefire is not holding.”
Pakistan this week said it would partially reopen the frontier for aid deliveries, with the crossing at Chaman expected to be used by UN agencies.
It was not clear when the deliveries will begin, but Zaidi said “aid deliveries are separate” and the latest clash would have “no impact on that decision.”
