PARACHINAR: A soldier was martyred and 11 others, including seven personnel and four civilians, were injured when clashes erupted between security forces and Afghan Taliban in Kurram tribal district on Saturday and Sunday night over construction of a road in the Pakistani territory by the latter.

Senior civil and military officials from Pakistan and Afghanistan held a flag meeting at zero-line on Monday to defuse the tension amid a fragile ceasefire.

Kurram deputy commissioner Wasil Khan Khattak told the media in Parachinar that efforts were underway to resolve the issue through peaceful means.

Commissioner Kohat division Mehmood Aslam Wazir, Brigadier Shahzad Azeem, senior officials and elders of Kurram met with Afghan Taliban at zero-line.

Heavy clashes erupted over a dispute on the construction of a road on the lands owned by the residents of Khurlachi and Borki, which are falling on the other side of the border fence, near Afghanistan’s Paktia province.

Haji Nauroz Ali, a resident of Borki, told Dawn that the lands where Afghan Taliban attempted to construct the road belonged to the local people, who had allotment and revenue record of these properties.

He alleged that claim of the Afghan Taliban was illegal and there was clear demarcation of the border. “Successive Afghan governments had never laid claim over these lands before fencing,” he said. A source said talks between the two sides remained inconclusive as tensions prevailed. Some families have moved from Khurlachi and Borki to Parachinar.

Officials said one soldier was martyred and seven received injuries in exchange of fire with the Afghan Taliban.

Clashes broke out on Saturday after Taliban started construction of the road in Pakistani territory. Residents said heavy firing continued on Saturday and Sunday night.

Mortar shells and rockets also hit houses in Borki and Khurlachi, leaving four civilians wounded. Sporadic firing continued before start of the flag meeting between Pakistani security forces and Taliban on Monday morning.

Local people said they had abandoned their properties since Pakistan government erected fence. Under the multibillion rupees border management plan, the army launched fencing along the Durand Line in 2017 in an attempt to regulate cross-border movement between the two countries, control smuggling and movement of militants.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2022