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 night, and the country’s Defense Ministry said this was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan earlier in the week.
Pakistan said it had responded with weapons and artillery fire. Pakistani security officials said several Afghan border posts were destroyed in retaliatory attacks.
The exchange of fire largely ended on Sunday morning, Pakistani security officials said. But in Pakistan’s Kurram area, intermittent gunfire continued, according to local officials 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. Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry had previously said its operation had ended at midnight local time.
“There is no type of threat anywhere on the territory of Afghanistan,” Taliban administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Sunday.
Landlocked Afghanistan has a 2,600-kilometer (1,600-mile) long border with Pakistan. Islamabad accuses the Taliban administration of harboring militants attacking Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies.
Pakistani airstrikes, not officially recognized by Islamabad, targeted the leader of the militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Kabul on Thursday, according to a Pakistani security official. It is unclear if he survived.
The TTP has been fighting to overthrow the Islamabad government and replace it with a strict Islamic-led system of government. He has had a close relationship with the Afghan Taliban.
