By AFP
Hizbollah and Amal fighters pictured with Kalashnikov and rocket-propelled grenade launcher amid clashes in the southern suburbs of Beirut © Ibraham Amro/AFP via Getty Images
A gun battle erupted Wednesday between Pakistani and Afghan border forces, officials said, with each side blaming the other for starting the firefight that shut their busiest trade crossing.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have had frosty relations since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul two years ago, with Islamabad accusing its neighbour of harbouring militants carrying out strikes on its soil.
Diplomatic tensions have been stoked by frequent flare-ups along their mostly mountainous border, which Kabul has long disputed, including sporadic gunfights and crossing closures.
“Afghan forces tried to establish a check post in an area where it is agreed… that both sides will not establish a check post,” said Pakistan local administration official Irshad Mohmand, who also said the crossing remains closed.
“After an objection from the Pakistan side, the Afghan forces opened fire,” he said, adding that Pakistan border forces responded with “retaliatory fire”.
The Taliban government, in turn, blamed Pakistan.
“Pakistani forces attacked the Afghan side when Afghan forces wanted to reactivate their old outpost with an excavator,” said Quraishi Badloon, an official for the information and culture directorate in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.
“The attack has resulted in casualties, but the exact figures are not known yet.”
A local Pakistan police official, who was not authorised to speak to the media, said gunshots started at around 1:00 pm (0800 GMT) at the Torkham border crossing, halfway between Islamabad and Kabul, with an evacuation ordered.
The shooting stopped by late Wednesday afternoon, but the border remained shut, he said.
“The atmosphere is tense” and “forces on both sides are alert”, he said.
One Pakistan border guard had been wounded in fire from light and heavy weapons, as well as mortars, said another local government official, who asked not to be identified.
The crossing at Torkham is a key trading waypoint, where Afghanistan exports truckloads of coal and receives food and other supplies from Pakistan.
Both nations are in dire economic straits, with Afghanistan reeling from a drop-off in aid following the end of the US-backed occupation and Pakistan crippled by a domestic downturn and runaway inflation.
A gun battle also erupted at the crossing in February after Taliban authorities ordered the border shut, with both sides blaming the other for starting the firefight.
“Efforts are being made to prevent the causes of this clash and the recurrence of such incidents,” Taliban government interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said on Wednesday.