Crossings on Afghanistan border closed after heavy clashes

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

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A man sits next to trucks at a border crossing after Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan following clashes yesterday.

(REUTERS)

Neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan have had frosty relations since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021. Islamabad accuses authorities there of harbouring 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 kilometres to the southwest, were closed.

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