Dozens reported killed after Pakistani and Afghan troops clash along border

Intense clashes erupted along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Saturday night after an attack by the Afghan Taliban on the Pakistani military led to a heavy exchange of fire and reportedly left dozens of soldiers dead.

- Haroon Janjua and Shah Meer Baloch Islamabad Hannah Ellis-Petersen Delhi

According to officials, Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani army posts along the northwestern border with Pakistan on Saturday evening and seized several of the posts. The attacks came after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes on Afghan territory, including in the capital, Kabul, earlier in the week.

Yesterday, Pakistan responded with retaliatory strikes, gunfire and ground raids on Taliban posts along the shared border.

In a statement, Pakistan's military said 23 soldiers had been killed and another 29 wounded in the attacks. It claimed that 200 "Taliban and affiliated terrorists" from the Afghan side were killed in its retaliatory strikes and that terrorist training camps had been dismantled.

The Taliban spokesperson, Zabi-hullah Mujahid, had earlier claimed that Taliban forces killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in the attacks, while just nine from the Taliban side were killed.

The clashes signal a new low in relations between the two countries, which have become increasingly hostile amid claims that Afghanistan is giving a safe haven to Islamist militants carrying out an escalating number of deadly attacks on Pakistani soil.

Early yesterday morning, the Taliban government's defence ministry said its forces had conducted "retaliatory and successful operations" along the border.