ISLAMABAD: A soldier was injured in an ambush by militants from Afghanistan along the border between the two countries late on Friday night, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
The military’s media wing said that terrorists from the Afghan side of the border opened fire on a military checkpoint in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The troops responded promptly to the attack, the ISPR said. But, during the exchange of fire, a soldier was injured.
In the statement, the ISPR said Pakistan has “consistently been requesting Afghanistan to ensure effective border management”.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the use of Afghan soil by terrorists for activities against Pakistan,” it said.
The attack comes less than a week after a similar incident along the border in the Zhob district of Balochistan left four soldiers dead and six wounded. The attack was later claimed by proscribed Afghanistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The soldiers were working on fencing along the border in the district, the ISPR said in a statement on Wednesday. Zhob sits across from Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province.
The government is constructing a fence along its 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) frontier with Afghanistan to secure the region, despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the tribal belt straddling the Durand Line drawn up by the British in 1893.
As the United States prepares to end its longest war after nearly 20 years, there are fears that its troop withdrawal will extend the far longer conflict that has ravaged Afghanistan for four decades.
