Pakistani authorities closed a key border crossing with landlocked Afghanistan on Wednesday shortly after border guards from the two sides exchanged fire, officials and residents said, in a sign of increasing tensions between the two neighbours.
There were no reports of casualties, and it was not immediately known why the border guards from the two sides exchanged fire, said Nasrullah Khan, an official in Torkham, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He said Pakistani government and military officials were in contact with their Afghan counterparts to defuse tensions.
Abdul Mateen Qani, the Afghan Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed the clash between Afghan and Pakistani forces. He said officials from both sides were attempting to find out what caused the clash and ways to prevent such incidents in the future. Pakistani authorities said dozens of trucks carrying perishable items, including vegetables and fruits, were waiting on both sides of the border.