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Seven people were killed in a cross-border shelling by Afghan Taliban forces on a Pakistani border town on Sunday as relations between the two neighbors continued to deteriorate, Pakistan’s military said.
The attack on Chaman in southwestern Pakistan follows a series of deadly incidents that have heightened tensions between Islamabad and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers. Chamain is a major crossing point for trade between the two countries.
The border crossing reopened on Monday morning, authorities said.
Pakistan’s military media initially said six people were killed in Sunday’s shelling, but the death toll later rose to seven.
Another 16 people were wounded, the military said, blaming Afghan forces for “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire on civilians”.
In Afghanistan, a spokesman for Kandahar Governor Ataullah Zaid appeared to link clashes between Pakistani and Taliban forces to the construction of new checkpoints on the Afghan side of the border.
He said one Taliban fighter was killed and 10 others were wounded. Three civilians were also wounded, he added.
The Pakistani military said troops responded to the Afghan fire, but gave no further details. It said Pakistan had approached authorities in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to stress the seriousness of the incident at the border.
Earlier, Akhtar Mohammad, a doctor at a government-run hospital in Chaman, told The Associated Press that a total of 27 people were injured by the live ammunition and were taken to hospital for treatment. He said seven people were in critical condition.
Wali Mohammad, a resident of the Pakistani side of the border, took his wounded cousin to the hospital in Chaman. He said there were multiple explosions following the rapid gunfire.
“We were resting in the street like any other day when suddenly, we heard a big explosion and the debris hit a lot of people, including one of my cousins,” he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif criticized the Taliban on Twitter on Monday: “The interim government of Afghanistan should ensure that such incidents do not happen again.”
A deadly shooting in November closed the Chamain border for eight days, causing severe damage to businesses and stranded thousands of people on both sides.
Later that month, the Pakistani embassy in Kabul came under fire.
Pakistani officials called the incident an attack on its envoy and blamed Taliban officials for the security breach.
Islamabad also said Afghanistan’s rulers were sheltering militants who carried out deadly attacks on its territory.
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