5 dead in Af-Pak border clashes

An overnight exchange of fire between Afghan forces and Pakistani troops along the two countries’ tense border killed five Afghan civilians and wounded five others, while three civilians were also wounded on the Pakistani side, officials from the two countries said on Saturday.

- Associated Press

A mortar near a damaged house in Chaman on Saturday.

(AFP)

Each side has blamed the other for triggering the clash in violation of a tenuous two-month ceasefire.

Those killed in the border area near the Afghan city of Spin Boldak, in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, included three children and one woman, said Ali Mohammad Haqmal, the head of information of Spin Boldak District.

Pakistani police and a hospital official in the Pakistani city of Chaman, Mohammad Awais, said three people, including a woman, were wounded in the shooting and shelling that came from the Afghan side. The clashes lasted until dawn Saturday, police said.