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Gunfire after Afghan Taliban shut key border crossing with Pakistan
After the Taliban closed the busiest border crossing between Afghanistan and its eastern neighbour, gunfire broke out between Afghan and Pakistani border forces on Monday, according to officials.
Since the Taliban overran Kabul in August 2021, relations between the nations have been tense, with Islamabad accusing its neighbour of harbouring armed organizations that have launched attacks on its territory.
There have been numerous flare-ups, including periodic gunfights and crossing closures, along the largely mountainous border that divides the two nations but which neither Afghan authority has ever recognized.
A Pakistani official told AFP the Torkham crossing, equidistant between Kabul and Islamabad, was shut late Sunday after Pakistani officials turned away a traveller accompanying a medical patient.
On Monday at 7:30 am Afghan time (0300 GMT) a “clash took place when Pakistani forces fired at Afghan forces”, Afghan official Harfat Muhajir told AFP.
“Afghan forces shot in response, but nobody was hurt,” he added.
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Mohammad Sediq Khalid, the commissioner for Torkham on the Afghan side, said “the gate has been closed by the order of Kabul officials after complaints that Pakistan is not fulfilling its promises”.
A Pakistan border security source told AFP the dispute over the traveller’s refused entry stemmed from a new requirement for attendants of medical patients to carry certain documentation.
The government did not respond to a request from AFP to clarify the new rules.
The border crossing at Torkham — 177 kilometres (110 miles) from the capital of each country — is a key trading waypoint, where Afghanistan exports truckloads of coal and receives food and other supplies from Pakistan.
Both nations are in dire economic crisis, with Afghanistan reeling from a drop-off in aid following the end of the US-backed occupation, and Pakistan crippled by a domestic downturn and foreign exchange crisis that has left it on the brink of default.
