Pakistan army rejects Afghan rocket shelling claim
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, July 24, IRNA -- Pakistan army has rejected claim by Afghan officials that four people were killed after hundreds of shells and rockets were fired into Afghanistan’s border region from the Pakistani territory.
“The claim by afghan official that Pakistan troops fired 400 rockets across border in Afghanistan is not correct,” a Pakistani military official said.
“Pakistani troops only respond and engage militants from where they are attacked/fired upon,” the official told the media.
The official recalled that during last one year almost 15 cross border attacks have been carried out from across the border by militants on Pakistani check posts and civil population in Dir and Chitral districts in the northwest in which over 100 civilian and security forces personnel have been killed.
Afghan officials said that a few homes were hit during the attack, adding that these attacks in nearby Nuristan had forced hundreds of families to flee the area.
Earlier, 23 Pakistani troops were killed on June 25 when Taliban insurgents crossed over from Afghanistan and mounted a deadly ambush on a patrol of Pakistani security forces.
Pakistani Taliban, now based in Afghanistan border regions, routinely launch attacks on Pakistani border posts, the army says.
Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had said that the cross-border attacks by militants were high on the agenda during his visit to Afghanistan on July 19.
Pakistani media has reported that the country’s ambassador in Kabul was summoned to the Afghan Foreign Ministry on Sunday and a formal protest was lodged over rocket firing from Pakistani soil into Afghanistan, which killed four people.
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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 80243967
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