Fresh violence erupted late Tuesday along the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kurram district, pitting Pakistani security forces against Afghan Taliban fighters in a fierce exchange of gunfire, according to state media reports.
Pakistan’s state broadcaster, PTV News, detailed that the Afghan Taliban and militants from the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan referred to by authorities as “Fitna al-Khawarij” initiated unprovoked shooting in the area. Pakistani troops retaliated decisively, inflicting significant losses on the enemy positions. PTV News indicated that Taliban outposts suffered severe destruction, including the obliteration of at least one tank from a direct strike.
Following the intense firefight, the Taliban combatants abandoned their sites, fleeing under pressure from the Pakistani response. Subsequent dispatches from PTV News revealed further successes, with an additional Taliban outpost and tank emplacement demolished in the Kurram sector, and a fourth tank site at the Shamsadar post neutralized.
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The skirmish compounded an already tense situation at the frontier. Earlier that day, Pakistan’s Foreign Office announced that Foreign Secretary Amna Baloch had delivered a detailed update to diplomats based in Islamabad on the evolving border dynamics. In the briefing, she highlighted Pakistan’s valid security imperatives and its firm commitment to safeguarding sovereignty and territorial boundaries.
This latest incident follows a deadly assault over the weekend, when Afghan Taliban units allegedly struck Pakistani border installations without warning, resulting in the deaths of 23 soldiers, as stated by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). In a robust counteroffensive, Pakistan claimed to have eliminated over 200 Taliban fighters and their allies.
Afghan authorities in Kabul countered that their actions constituted retaliation for alleged Pakistani airstrikes within Afghan borders the previous week. While Islamabad has refrained from acknowledging those strikes, it has repeatedly pressed Kabul to curb operations by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan from Afghan soil. Officials in the Pakistani capital have long demanded that the Taliban regime halt the use of its territory as a launchpad for cross-border incursions by terrorist outfits.
Kabul, for its part, firmly rejects these assertions, maintaining that Afghanistan does not permit its land to be exploited for aggression against neighbors.
The renewed hostilities have disrupted vital trade routes, leaving a convoy of cargo trucks idle on the Afghan side of the Torkham crossing in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. The closure, triggered by the October 14 clashes, underscores the fragility of the Durand Line border and the persistent challenges in bilateral security cooperation. As both nations dig in, the risk of escalation looms large, testing diplomatic channels amid longstanding mutual suspicions.
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