Pakistan said its army retaliated to cross-border firing by Afghanistan forces and local militants in provocation it claimed began on Tuesday night.
Dozens of troops as well as civilians were killed in fresh clashes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that erupted Tuesday night, reports said on Wednesday, citing security officials from both sides.
Pakistan's military said two assaults by Afghanistan's Taliban on major border posts in the southwest and northwest were repelled, with about 20 Taliban fighters killed in attacks launched near Spin Boldak on the Afghan side of the frontier in southern Kandahar province early on Wednesday, according to AFP news agency.
"Unfortunately the attack was orchestrated through divided villages in the area, with no regard for the civil population," the report quoted military as saying in a statement. The Pakistan military said about 30 more were likely killed in overnight clashes along its northwest border.
Afghan officials told the news agency that 15 civilians were dead and dozens were injured in the fresh violence on the border between the two countries.
Reuters reported, citing security officials, that fighting between troops and militants in Pakistan's border district of Orakzai killed six Pakistani paramilitary soldiers and injured as many others.
Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused Pakistani forces of "once again" carrying out attacks "with light and heavy weapons" in the district.
This comes days after the two countries clashed last weekend after Afghanistan launched revenge strikes on Pakistan, responding to an attack in Afghani capital Kabul that the country blamed the latter for.
Pakistan said it responded with full force to the “unprovoked” firing in the northwestern Kurram region, killing many Taliban and damaging their forward posts and a tank, a Bloomberg report quoted state-run Pakistan Television as saying on X, citing unidentified security people.
The PTV reported that an important leader of the Pakistani Taliban, a local offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, was killed in the retaliatory attack.
Afghanistan forces killed many “invading” soldiers of Pakistan, while seizing weapons and tanks and capturing their posts, Zabihullah Mujahid of the Taliban regime said in an X post.
What happened on Pakistan-Afghanistan border last weekend
Afghanistan launched attacks on Pakistani soldiers along their shared border late Saturday, in what it called "retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul" on October 7 night.
While Afghanistan claimed its strikes killed 58 Pakistani soldiers, Pakistan said the toll was 23, adding that it managed to kill more than 200 Taliban and affiliated troops in counterfire. The border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan were also shut on Sunday, October 12, amid tensions.
Hours after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed strong response, the Taliban said it has “other ways to handle the situation if Pakistan does not want to engage in dialogue.”
The two fighting was halted after Qatar and Saudi Arabia intervened.
Ali Mohammad Haqmal, spokesman for the local information department in the Spin Boldak region, said 15 civilians were killed by mortar fire in the fresh clashes, according to AFP news agency.
The news agency said the toll was confirmed by Abdul Jan Barak, an official at the Spin Boldak district hospital, who said more than 80 women and children were injured.
