QUETTA, Pakistan—Cross-border shelling and gunfire between Afghanistan and Pakistan killed eight Pakistani civilians and one Afghan soldier on Sunday, officials on both sides of the frontier said, with each side accusing the other of starting the fighting.
The Pakistan army said Afghan border forces had opened “unprovoked and indiscriminate fire of heavy weapons including artillery/mortar on to the civilian population” at the Chaman border crossing, which links Pakistan’s western Balochistan Province with Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar Province.
Six civilians were killed and 17 wounded on the Pakistani side by Afghan fire, leading Pakistani troops to retaliate, the Pakistan military said in a statement on Sunday….