Afghan and Pakistani forces engaged in new clashes along their troubled border region, days after deadly air strikes on Afghanistan by Pakistan sent tensions soaring.
The two countries gave competing accounts of the violence on Tuesday, each accusing the other of triggering it.
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Zabihullah Noorani, head of the Afghan information department in the eastern Nangarhar Province, said Pakistani forces carried out the first shots in the Shahkot area near the border. The fighting has since stopped, and there are no Afghan casualties, he added.
Pakistani government official Mosharraf Zaidi accused Afghan forces of firing unprovoked near the Torkham border area.
“Pakistan’s security forces responded immediately and effectively silencing the Taliban aggression,” Zaidi wrote in a post on X.
The fighting follows Pakistani strikes on Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Paktika Provinces on Sunday, which the UN mission in Afghanistan said killed at least 13 civilians.
‘We will respond’
Afghanistan’s Taliban government said at least 18 people were killed and denied Pakistan’s announcement that the military operation killed more than 80 fighters.
Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides.
Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against armed groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies.
Pakistan’s military claimed its latest air strikes in Afghanistan targeted “camps and hideouts” belonging to armed groups behind a spate of recent attacks, including a deadly suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad.
The Afghan Defence Ministry condemned the attacks, saying they “hit a religious school and residential homes”, causing “dozens of deaths and injuries, including women and children”.
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