Days After Pak Air Strikes, Soldier Killed In Clashes With Afghan Troops

Peshawar:

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed and 7 others wounded in cross-border exchanges of fireside with Afghanistan’s forces, a safety supply stated Saturday, whereas a whole bunch of Afghans protested in opposition to the lethal air strikes that sparked the clashes.

Sporadic preventing, together with with heavy weaponry, erupted in a single day between border forces on the frontier between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and Khost province in Afghanistan, officers from each international locations stated.

The exchanges of fireside come after Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of killing 46 folks, primarily girls and kids, in air strikes close to the border within the southeastern province of Paktika this week.

A Pakistan senior safety supply stated they focused “terrorist hideouts”, although Islamabad has not formally confirmed finishing up the bombardment.

“One frontier corps (FC) soldier has been reported lifeless, and 7 others have been injured,” a senior safety supply on the border informed AFP, including clashes happened in a minimum of two places in Pakistan’s border district of Kurram.

The Afghan defence ministry stated on X that “a number of factors” throughout the border with Pakistan “the place the assaults in Afghanistan have been organised… have been focused in retaliation”.

A provincial official in Khost informed AFP the clashes pressured residents to flee border areas, however that there have been no experiences of casualties amongst Afghan forces.

In Khost metropolis, the provincial capital, a whole bunch of Afghans demonstrated in opposition to Pakistan on Saturday, calling for accountability for civilian deaths.

Protester Najibullah Zaland stated they demanded international financial strain on Pakistan to forestall such incidents.

“We gathered right here at the moment to boost our voices to the world,” he informed AFP.

“A path to peace have to be put in place, or else the youth is not going to keep silent.”

The demonstrators praised the Afghan forces, with one protester, Rashidullah Hamdard, saying “our fighters gave them a powerful response, and we stand with our forces”.

“We demand the world maintain the Pakistani army accountable for these merciless and silly assaults,” Hamdard stated.

– ‘Purple line’ –

The strikes have been the newest spike in hostilities on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with border tensions between the 2 international locations escalating for the reason that Taliban seized energy in 2021.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s authorities of harbouring militant fighters, permitting them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity — allegations the Taliban authorities denies.

Skirmishes alongside the frontier escalated after Pakistan’s army performed lethal air strikes in Afghanistan’s border areas in March, which Taliban authorities claimed killed eight civilians.

The UN help mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, referred to as for an investigation into the “credible experiences” of civilian deaths, because the UN youngsters’s company UNICEF stated “youngsters will not be and mustn’t ever be a goal”.

“UNICEF is deeply saddened by experiences that a minimum of 20 youngsters have been killed in an assault close to the border in japanese Afghanistan,” regional director Sanjay Wijesekera posted on X.

The strike comes after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — who share a typical ideology with their Afghan counterparts — final week claimed a raid on a military outpost close to the border with Afghanistan, which Pakistan stated killed 16 troopers.

“We need good ties with them (Kabul) however TTP needs to be stopped from killing our harmless folks,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stated in a cupboard handle on Friday.

“That is our purple line,” he added.

Pakistan has been battling a resurgence of militant violence in its western border areas for the reason that Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

In 2024 alone, the army has reported 383 troopers and 925 militants killed in varied clashes.

(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)