Killings of six civilians and a soldier spark blame game between Pakistan and Afghanistan

Pakistan says it retaliated to ‘indiscriminate fire’ while Afghanistan claims Islamabad objected to construction of checkpoint

Pakistan Afghanistan Border (AP)

Six civilians and one soldier were killed after cross-border firing took place between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the site of the second-largest commercial border point between the two south Asian neighbours.

Both countries traded blame for the killings and accused each other of opening fire at the border, which has been the flashpoint of tensions between the neighbours for decades.

Afghan Taliban border forces opened “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons” including bombing and gunfire on civilian population, Pakistan’s military said on Sunday.

Six Pakistani civilians were killed and 17 were injured on Pakistan’s side of the Chaman border, a key trade route between the two countries that links Pakistan‘s western Balochistan province with Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province.

Pakistani military said Afghan forces launched “indiscriminate fire”, forcing its troops to retaliate.

However, the Kandahar government said the clashes broke out after Islamabad objected to Afghan forces constructing a new check point.

“They didn’t want us to build these posts on our side of the border,” Haji Zahid, a spokesman for Kandahar’s governor, told Reuters, adding it ensued a two-hour long gun battle.

One Afghan soldier was killed and 10 were injured, including three civillians, Kandahar police spokesman Hafiz Saber said.

The incident comes as tensions soared between the two countries over security issues after the Taliban regained control of the country last year.

Chaman, the second-largest commercial border point between the two countries after Torkham in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has remained at the centre of a decades-long territorial Af-Pak dispute. The border is a vital source of customs revenue for the cash-strapped government in Afghanistan.

The countries have for decades fueded at their border, with the Chaman crossing often remaining closed for many days after similar, earlier clashes.

Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a tweet that the attack “deserves the strongest condemnation”.

“Unprovoked shelling & fire by Afghan Border Forces at Chaman resulting in martyrdom of several Pakistani citizens & injuring more than a dozen is unfortunate & deserves the strongest condemnation,” he said.

“The Afghan Interim government should ensure that such incidents are not repeated.”

Pakistan’s foreign office said the “unfortunate incidents” are not in “keeping with the brotherly ties between the two countries”.

Akhtar Mohammad, a doctor with a government-run hospital in Chaman, told the Associated Press that live rounds injured a total of 27 people who were taken to the hospital for treatment. He said seven were in a critical condition.

A resident on the Pakistani side of the border, Wali Mohammad, said he took his wounded cousin to the hospital following the a number of explosions and rapid gunfire.

“We were in the street like any other day off when, suddenly, a big explosion was heard and debris hit many people, including one of my cousins,” he said.

A deadly shooting last month led to shutting down of the Chaman border for eight days, causing heavy commercial losses and leaving thousands of people stranded on both sides.

In November, Pakistan’s Embassy in Kabul came under attack after two gunmen opened fired in what Islamabad said was an attempt to assassinate its envoy. Islamabad blamed Taliban officials for the security breach.