Pakistan-Afghan border crossings closed after heavy clashes

Key border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan were closed on Sunday after fierce clashes erupted overnight following Taliban accusations that Islamabad had carried out air strikes this week, officials said.

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Neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan have had frosty relations since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Islamabad accuses authorities there of harboring militants carrying out strikes on its soil, an accusation Afghanistan denies.

Afghanistan’s Taliban forces attacked Pakistani soldiers along their shared border on Saturday night, accusing Islamabad of violating its sovereignty after explosions were heard in Kabul and in the southeast two days earlier.

Officials from both sides of the border told AFP that crossings at Torkham, which connects Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with Nangarhar in Afghanistan, and Chaman, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the southwest, were closed.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif condemned what he said were “provocations by Afghanistan” along Pakistan’s border area overnight.