One person was killed and five injured after Afghan Taliban fired at civilian houses and a market in Pakistan's Waziristan region near the Afghan border, a senior Pakistani administrative official said on Wednesday 28 October. The Deputy Commissioner of South Waziristan Lower said on X that Pakistani forces were responding effectively and heavily to what he called unprovoked firing on Tuesday, in the Angoor Adda border sector. Local officials said mortar rounds fired from Afghan territory hit homes and commercial storefronts.

Two accounts of one exchange

The Afghan side gave a different account of the same exchange. The Afghan Taliban said Pakistan had carried out four drone attacks on the district commissioner's office and nearby security facilities in Paktika province on Tuesday, and Afghan defence ministry spokesperson Sedeequllah Nasrat said several Pakistani soldiers were killed or wounded in retaliatory action on a nearby Pakistani military base. Reuters said it could not verify the claims of either side. The two accounts agree only on the essentials: an exchange of fire across the border on Tuesday, and civilian casualties on the Pakistani side.

A year of border bloodshed

The flare-up comes days after the Afghan Taliban said problems with Pakistan could be resolved through diplomacy, and against a year in which the conflict between the two neighbours has killed hundreds of people. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring militants who stage cross-border attacks, a charge the Taliban government denies, saying militancy is Pakistan's internal problem. Separately on Wednesday, Pakistan's military said security forces killed nine militants in two intelligence-based raids in the Kachhi and Wadh districts of Balochistan province.

Sources: Reuters and Anadolu via Eastora News.