Peshawar:

A Pakistani paramilitary soldier was killed and seven others wounded in cross-border exchanges of fire with Afghanistan’s forces, a security source said Saturday, while hundreds of Afghans protested against the deadly air strikes that sparked the clashes.

Sporadic fighting, including with heavy weaponry, erupted overnight between border forces on the frontier between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and Khost province in Afghanistan, officials from both countries said.

The exchanges of fire come after Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities accused Pakistan of killing 46 people, mainly women and children, in air strikes near the border in the southeastern province of Paktika this week.

A Pakistan senior security source said they targeted “terrorist hideouts”, though Islamabad has not officially confirmed carrying out the bombardment.

“One frontier corps (FC) soldier has been reported dead, and seven others have been injured,” a senior security source at the border told AFP, adding clashes took place in at least two locations in Pakistan’s border district of Kurram.

The Afghan defence ministry said on X that “several points” across the border with Pakistan “where the attacks in Afghanistan were organised… were targeted in retaliation”.

A provincial official in Khost told AFP the clashes forced residents to flee border areas, but that there were no reports of casualties among Afghan forces.

In Khost city, the provincial capital, hundreds of Afghans demonstrated against Pakistan on Saturday, calling for accountability for civilian deaths.

Protester Najibullah Zaland said they demanded global economic pressure on Pakistan to prevent such incidents.

“We gathered here today to raise our voices to the world,” he told AFP.

“A path to peace must be put in place, or else the youth will not stay silent.”

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

“We demand the world hold the Pakistani military accountable for these cruel and foolish attacks,” Hamdard said.

– ‘Red line’ –

The strikes were the latest spike in hostilities on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with border tensions between the two countries escalating since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

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

Skirmishes along the frontier escalated after Pakistan’s military conducted deadly air strikes in Afghanistan’s border regions in March, which Taliban authorities claimed killed eight civilians.

The UN assistance mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, called for an investigation into the “credible reports” of civilian deaths, as the UN children’s agency UNICEF said “children are not and must never be a target”.

“UNICEF is deeply saddened by reports that at least 20 children have been killed in an attack near the border in eastern Afghanistan,” regional director Sanjay Wijesekera posted on X.

The strike comes after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — who share a common ideology with their Afghan counterparts — last week claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which Pakistan said killed 16 soldiers.

“We desire good ties with them (Kabul) but TTP should be stopped from killing our innocent people,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a cabinet address on Friday.

“This is our red line,” he added.

Pakistan has been battling a resurgence of militant violence in its western border regions since the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

In 2024 alone, the military has reported 383 soldiers and 925 militants killed in various clashes.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police officers, along with workers from the National Database and Registration Authority, check the identity cards of Afghan citizens during a door-to-door search and verification drive for undocumented Afghan nationals, in an Afghan Camp on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pakistan said on July 11 that it was hosting at least 44,000 Afghan nationals approved and accepted for relocation by the Western nations to their countries due to fear of reprisal against them by the Taliban.

In 2021, Pakistan saw an exodus of Afghans who left their country after the NATO-backed Afghan government crumbled and the Taliban entered Kabul.

Addressing the weekly press briefing in Islamabad, Foreign Office spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said that at least 44,000 Afghans approved for relocation to Western nations are still in Pakistan.

She said that 25,000 Afghans were approved for relocation to the U.S., 9,000 Afghan nationals accepted for relocation by Australia, 6,000 by Canada, 3,000 by Germany, and over 1,000 by the U.K., but were still living in Pakistan.

Ms. Baloch said they were all yet to be relocated despite the lapse of almost three years since the NATO-backed Afghan government crumbled and the Taliban entered Kabul, triggering a painful exodus by Afghans who felt threatened by the new regime.

“We have urged them to expedite the approval and visa issuance process for these countries, for these individuals, so that they are relocated as early as possible,” Ms. Baloch said.

Initially, Pakistan allowed the fleeing Afghans to enter without any hindrance. However, relations with the interim Kabul government gradually deteriorated over the issue of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants using Afghan soil to attack Pakistan.

Last year, Pakistan launched a crackdown on illegal aliens, mostly Afghans, and so far, over half a million are reported to have gone back to Afghanistan.

Last year in October, the caretaker government announced the decision to expel all illegal foreigners, which hit the Afghans living in Pakistan especially hard.

OPINION | The inhumane decision to expel Afghan refugees

The deportation of illegal Afghan refugees has been going on since the government’s ultimatum for them to leave Pakistan by November 1, last year.

Pakistan refused to relax the drive against illegal Afghans despite requests by Kabul, but a meeting between UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday raised hopes that Islamabad may reconsider the drive.

A statement attributed to Grandi also showed that Pakistan would stop expelling Afghans, but Baloch said that Pakistan was committed to implementing the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan.

She said the first phase of this plan is near completion and alluded to the illegal foreigners, including Afghans repatriated to their home countries.

The spokesperson clarified that Pakistan had not given any understanding to the UNHCR for the plan’s suspension.

However, she pointed out that the government has approved a one-year extension of the validity of the Proof of Registration cards of Afghan refugees.

EDITORIAL | Scapegoating: On Afghan refugees in Pakistan 

Ms. Baloch also rejected any talks with the TTP by saying that the terrorist entity was involved in the killing of Pakistani and foreign citizens inside Pakistan.

She also said Pakistan respects Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“We expect the Afghan authorities to uphold their sovereignty and take action against terrorist groups which have found sanctuaries inside Afghanistan and use their territory for terrorist attacks against Pakistan,” she said.

Fighting has stopped on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border after Pakistani air strikes sparked skirmishes, a Taliban government spokesman said on March 19.

“The situation is calm, the fighting has stopped,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.

Pakistan carried out strikes in the border areas in Khost and Paktika provinces in Afghanistan early on March 18.

Islamabad said it had targeted militants it said were responsible for a recent attack on its soil, but Taliban authorities said eight civilians, all women and children, were killed in the bombardment.

Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said its border forces retaliated by targeting Pakistani military posts along the border with “heavy weapons”, with cross-border skirmishes reported by both sides.

A senior police officer in the Pakistani border district of Kurram told AFP that Afghan security forces struck the area with mortar shells.

“As a result, three security posts and five houses of civilians suffered partial damage, with nine individuals, including four security personnel wounded,” the officer told AFP, asking not to be named.

“Silence prevails on the border today, and security forces have reinforced their positions.”

Border tensions between the two countries have steadily escalated since the Taliban government seized power in 2021.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s Taliban government of harbouring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity.

Kabul has denied the allegations.

Gun battles also regularly erupt over the construction of checkpoints along the disputed border and trade crossings are closed over immigration disagreements.