Pakistani and Afghan border forces exchanged fire at several points along the border on Sunday, in the latest flare-up between the two sides. The clashes came days after earlier fighting along the same frontier, and they again closed a busy crossing and left a civilian dead.
The Torkham crossing was shut for nearly five hours after an hour-long exchange of light-arms fire over a disputed check post. It reopened only after border officials from both countries, working through intermediaries, agreed to halt all construction near the border.
In the Angoor Adda area of Lower South Waziristan, Afghan posts kept up what Pakistani officials described as unprovoked firing onto Pakistani border checkpoints. One civilian was killed in mortar shelling during the firing. The Deputy Commissioner of Lower South Waziristan said Pakistani forces responded immediately and effectively, striking multiple Afghan border posts, mortar positions and defensive checkpoints. He said the action forced Afghan Taliban fighters to abandon their posts and flee, and that no casualties were reported on the Pakistani side.
The Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR), Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, warned in an interview with Reuters that the Afghan Taliban would not be able to bear the cost if Kabul failed to rein in terrorists. He named India as the prime contractor behind terrorism in Pakistan, with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) acting as its proxies. He said Pakistan’s demand was that Kabul stop supporting terrorism inside Pakistan, and he named the shelter given to Noor Wali Mehsud, Bashir Zeb and Gul Bahadur.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a briefing in Atlanta on Saturday that Washington had obviously heard Pakistan’s concerns about terrorism emanating from Afghan soil. He said that if there was a productive role for the United States to play, it would play it, and that Washington preferred a diplomatic solution. Pakistan has welcomed United States facilitation, conditional on verifiable action against the TTP and the BLA.
Background: skirmishes on Friday destroyed several Afghan Taliban posts adjacent to South Waziristan and Parachinar. Firing at Angoor Adda on Tuesday killed one local resident and injured a family of five.
