The Kabul Tribune (KT) — Twelve members of the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, along with a Pakistani soldier, were killed in a border clash in northwestern Pakistan, Pakistan’s military said Sunday, while Afghan Taliban forces separately reported fighting with Pakistani troops along the disputed frontier.
The Pakistani military said the clash occurred in the Kurram
district near the Afghan border when Pakistani security forces confronted
members of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, who were allegedly attempting to
enter Pakistan from Afghanistan.
According to the military, Afghan Taliban forces opened fire
on Pakistani security personnel while supporting the attempted infiltration.
The military did not provide further details about the circumstances of the
fighting or independently verifiable evidence supporting its account.
The Pakistani soldier killed in the clash was identified as
40-year-old Hidayat Aman, the military said.
Pakistan’s military accused the Afghan Taliban
administration of supporting and facilitating militant activities against
Pakistan and said the incident reinforced its allegations that Afghan
authorities were failing to meet their international counterterrorism
obligations.
The Afghan Taliban have not been reported as responding
directly to the Pakistani military’s account of the incident.
Separately, the Afghan Taliban’s 203 Mansouri Corps said
Saturday night that armed clashes had broken out between its fighters and
Pakistani troops along the Durand Line, near Dand Patan district in
Afghanistan’s Paktia province.
According to the Afghan Taliban’s account, the fighting
began after Pakistani forces opened fire, prompting a response from its
fighters. The statement did not provide a confirmed casualty toll for that
confrontation.
The competing accounts underscore continuing tensions along
the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where the two sides have repeatedly exchanged
accusations over cross-border attacks and militant activity.
Pakistan has long accused the Afghan Taliban authorities of
allowing the TTP to operate from Afghan territory and launch attacks inside
Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban have rejected accusations that Afghanistan is
being used to threaten other countries and have called for security concerns to
be addressed through dialogue.
The latest reported clashes come amid persistent
disagreements over border security and the presence of militant groups in the
region. The casualty figures and accounts of how the fighting began could not
be independently verified from the information available.
