Pakistani and Afghan officials yesterday accused each other of killing civilians after gunfire erupted near a major border crossing where Pakistani census officials were carrying out a count.
The gunfight prompted Pakistani authorities to shut the Chaman border crossing, one of only two major crossing points along the disputed frontier, and threatens to exacerbate already tense relations between Islamabad and Kabul.
“Afghan border police opened fire on FC [Frontier Corps] detailed for security of population census team,” the Pakistani military said in a statement, adding that one civilian had been killed and 18 others, including four soldiers, injured.
Photo: Reuters
It accused Afghan officials of “creating hurdles” for census work in the area.
However, Samim Khpalwak, spokesman for the governor of Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, said that the Pakistani officials had strayed into the Afghan side of the border and were attempting to count people living there.
“So far in the fighting, we have one Afghan civilian killed and three border police forces wounded,” he told reporters, adding that the fighting was still ongoing, with “dozens” of Afghan security forces rushing to the scene.
The two nations are divided by the “Durand Line,” a 2,400km frontier drawn by the British in 1896 and disputed by Kabul, which does not officially recognize it as an international border.
Ethnic Pashtuns living along the border have traditionally paid it little heed, with villages straddling the frontier that have mosques and houses with one door in Pakistan and another in Afghanistan.
The border is not the only area of dispute between the neighbors: Afghanistan has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring the Afghan Taliban, although Islamabad has said it provides the militants with safe haven as a “lever” to bring them to peace talks.
Pakistan has also accused Afghanistan of harboring militants who carry out attacks in its territory.
Pakistan in March embarked on the enormous task of conducting its first census in almost two decades.
The fast-growing country is the sixth-most populous in the world, with an estimated 200 million people, but has not held a census since 1998, despite a constitutional requirement for one every decade.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of