All border crossings between Pakistan and Afghanistan remain closed as the countries traded fire for the second time in a week.
The closures entered a fourth day on Wednesday after deadly weekend clashes spiked tensions along the 1,622-mile-long (2,611km) border.
It was not clear when the border might reopen, with hundreds of lorries lining the access roads, waiting for bilateral trade to resume.
The fighting started on Saturday night when Afghan forces struck several Pakistani military posts.
Afghan officials claimed to have killed 58 Pakistani soldiers, but Pakistan’s military said it lost 23 soldiers and killed more than 200 “Taliban and affiliated terrorists” in retaliatory fire along the border.
The clashes initially halted on Sunday following appeals from Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
But they continued on Tuesday after the countries’ forces traded fire in the remote northwestern border region connecting Afghanistan’s Khost province with Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
State-run media in Pakistan accused Afghan troops and Pakistani Taliban of jointly opening “unprovoked fire” at a Pakistani post in Kurram, which was met with a “strong response”, damaging Afghan tanks and military posts as well as destroying a large training facility of the Pakistani Taliban.
Lorries bound for Pakistan are stranded on the Afghan side of a border crossing in Nangarhar province. Pic: AP
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s military, but a deputy police spokesperson in Khost province confirmed that fire was exchanged.
The escalation came after the Taliban government accused Pakistan of carrying out airstrikes in Kabul, an allegation Pakistan has not acknowledged.
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Pakistan has previously launched strikes inside Afghanistan to target Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a separate but allied group to the Afghan Taliban, which Islamabad said has hideouts in Afghanistan.
Kabul denies harbouring the group, which has carried out several deadly attacks inside Pakistan.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
