Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan on Sunday, Pakistani officials said after the exchange of fire between the forces in the two countries.
Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani border posts late Saturday, when the country’s Department of Defense said this was in return for Pakistani air strikes in Afghanistan earlier this week.
Pakistan said it had responded with gun and artillery. Pakistani security officials said several Afghan border posts were destroyed in retaliatory attacks.
The exchange of fire was mostly over Sunday morning, Pakistani security officials said. But in Pakistan’s Kurram area, intermittent firearms continued according to local officials and residents.
Pakistan’s two most important border crossings with Afghanistan in Torkham and Chaman were closed on Sunday, local officials said. At least three smaller crossings at Kharlachi, Angoor Adda and Ghulam Khan were also closed, local officials said.
There was no immediate comment from Kabul about the closure of the border. Afghanistan’s Department of Defense had previously said its operation had ended at midnight local time.
“There is no threat in any part of Afghanistan’s territory,” said the Taliban administration spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, Sunday.
Land -locked Afghanistan has a 2,600 km (1,600 km) long border to Pakistan. Islamabad accuses the Taliban administration of housing militants attacking Pakistan, a prosecutor that Kabul denies.
The Pakistani air strikes, not officially recognized by Islamabad, had targeted the leader of the Tehreek-E-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group in Kabul on Thursday, according to a Pakistani security officer. It is unclear if he survived.
TTP has struggled to overthrow the Islamabad government and replace it with a strictly Islamic-led management system. It has had a close relationship with the Afghan Taliban.
