PESHAWAR, Dec 28: 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. —AFP
