Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan on Sunday, Pakistani officials said, following exchanges of fire between the two countries’ forces.
Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani border posts on Saturday evening, with the Defense Ministry saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan earlier in the week.
Pakistan said it responded with gunfire and artillery. Pakistani security officials said several Afghan border posts were destroyed in retaliatory attacks.
The exchange of fire essentially ended Sunday morning, Pakistani security officials said. But in Pakistan’s Kurram region, intermittent shooting continued, according to local authorities and residents.
Pakistan’s two main border crossings with Afghanistan, at Torkham and Chaman, were closed on Sunday, local officials said. At least three minor crossings, at Kharlachi, Angoor Adda and Ghulam Khan, were also closed, local officials said.
There was no immediate comment from Kabul on the border closure. The Afghan Defense Ministry previously said its operation ended at midnight local time.
“There is no kind of threat to any part of Afghan territory,” Taliban administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Sunday.
Landlocked Afghanistan has a 2,600 km (1,600 mile) border with Pakistan. Islamabad accuses the Taliban administration of harboring militants who attack Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies.
The Pakistani airstrikes, not officially recognized by Islamabad, targeted the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group in Kabul on Thursday, according to a Pakistani security official. It is unknown if he survived.
The TTP is fighting to overthrow the government in Islamabad and replace it with a strict Islamic system of governance. It maintains close relations with the Afghan Taliban.
