A recent border clash that wounded several Pakistani and Afghan security personnel was sparked by insurgents in Afghanistan who fired at targets in both countries, apparently to stoke cross-border tensions, NATO said yesterday.
The alliance said it responded to the Thursday evening assault with artillery and a bomb, and had verified that its rounds had struck insurgent positions inside Afghanistan.
The incident prompted Pakistan, which says six of its troops were wounded, to protest to NATO. It adds to high tensions between the neighboring nations, whose border areas have often been the scene of skirmishes between security forces as well as militants.
It also occurred about a month after a high-profile border incident in which Pakistan said 11 of its soldiers died when US aircraft bombed their post in the Mohmand area.
A NATO official said the alliance suspects that insurgents deliberately tried to spark tension by aiming at targets on both sides of the long, poorly demarcated border.
“Because it was very close to the border, we verified that the origins of the fire was within Afghanistan,” NATO spokesman Mark Laity said. “And once we got that, we fired on the two points of origin, and aircraft also were called in and put one bomb on target.”
NATO said it had received reports that four Afghan border police officers and eight Pakistani military troops were wounded.
Pakistan’s army said that six mortar rounds fell close to a military post in Angore Adda in South Waziristan, wounding six Pakistani troops. Pakistani forces immediately returned fire.
Pakistan army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said it had lodged a “strong protest” with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force over the latest clash. Details of the complaint were not immediately available.
“This was mortar fire from the Afghan side,” Abbas said late on Friday. “Whether it was foreign forces or Afghan forces it’s yet to be determined.”
Afghan and Pakistani troops have skirmished repeatedly along the border over the years, despite urgings from US officials that they improve their coordination.
The border areas are considered a haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants who often travel between the two countries. Pakistan has been accused of not doing enough to crack down on militants operating on its side.
An intelligence official said on Friday that the firing from Afghanistan began after Taliban had attacked a foreign troop base on the Afghan side of the border. He has said two civilians were also wounded in the fire.
The exchange of fire between the forces fighting militants on both sides of the border comes at a time of increased tension between the two neighbors, with both complaining that violence in their own country was fuelled by the situation in the other.
Afghanistan’s foreign minister has said that main factors contributing to a deterioration of Afghan security was a de facto truce in tribal areas beyond the border, a clear reference to Pakistan.
The new Pakistani government led by the party of assassinated former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto began talks with Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, based in the remote tribal region, South Waziristan, through tribal elders after it came to power in March.
Mehsud suspended talks last month after security forces launched a sweep in a tribal region against Islamist militants threatening the main northwestern city of Peshawar.
Meanwhile, militants were to start killing a group of hostages yesterday if the government did not release several insurgent prisoners, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman said. A suspected militant leader is among those the Taliban want freed.
Maulvi Umar claimed on Friday that the Taliban had kidnapped 29 people, most of them security forces. However, Hangu district official Haji Khan Afzal said only 16 or 17 people were being held.
The two sides have been negotiating over the captives, who Afzal said were taken in the wake of a militant siege of a local police station earlier this week in the country’s volatile northwest.
Officials said more than 100 militants surrounded the Doaba station to demand their associates be freed, and the siege ended after army troops appeared.
But the militants have not dropped their demands.
Umar insisted the government release seven militant prisoners, including a suspected top insurgent known as Rafiuddin, by 2pm yesterday or the hostages would be slain.
“It’s our final warning,” Umar said.
On Thursday, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik announced the arrest of Rafiuddin, an alleged deputy to top Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan.
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