By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A mortar shell fired from Afghanistan landed on a family home in South Waziristan district on Tuesday night, killing one civilian and injuring five other members of the household, officials said.
The deputy commissioner of Lower South Waziristan said Afghan Taliban forces fired mortar rounds at civilian houses and at the Angoor Adda bazaar. Many shops were damaged. He said Pakistan’s border forces were responding “effectively and heavily”.
Security sources said the firing came from posts inside Afghan territory. They said snipers, small-arms and heavy weapons were used against Pakistani border posts and residential areas. They described the Pakistani reply as immediate: small and heavy arms, including artillery, against Afghan border posts, mortar positions and defensive bunkers. The sources said the “intense and accurate response” drove the Taliban fighters out of their posts and that Pakistani forces remained in full control of the border area. One Pakistani outlet reported that the posts hit lay in Afghanistan’s Paktika province and that residents of Barmal district on the Afghan side reported hearing sustained exchanges of heavy weapons.
Samar Haroon Bilour, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s information adviser, said on X, citing security sources, that a shell had hit a house in a civilian neighbourhood. She said the attack had caused “widespread anger” among local people. Troops, she said, were on high alert and the military response was continuing.
Faisal Karim Kundi, the provincial governor, condemned the “unprovoked and blatant aggression” and praised the security forces. “Let the Afghan Taliban regime have no illusions: Pakistan will never tolerate attacks on its people or violations of its sovereignty,” he said. “Our armed forces have the full backing of the nation to defend every inch of our soil.”
Angoor Adda is among the busiest and most sensitive crossings on the border. It is a trade route and one of the main points where people pass between the two countries. Local tribal communities have long complained that firing from across the line frightens residents and disrupts commerce and daily life. Officials described Tuesday’s fire as the latest in a run of violations.
The town has been hit repeatedly this year. Eight civilians, including women and children, were seriously injured by cross-border firing and shelling there on April 26 and 29, according to the district administration. In May, Pakistani security sources said Afghan forces fired three mortar shells at a market near the Durand Line, injuring 10 people. During the major border fighting in October last year, the authorities closed the crossing, halting bilateral trade and leaving dozens of trucks stranded on both sides.
The past six weeks have been especially volatile. On September 21, Pakistan carried out “calibrated” air strikes on militant hideouts near the border and ran intelligence-based ground operations. It said these killed 37 militants after a series of deadly attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The information ministry said three targets were destroyed in precision strikes, including a training centre for suicide bombers. The Taliban government’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, condemned strikes on Kunar and Paktika provinces and promised a response.
On September 24, the information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said Pakistan had struck 10 locations in Afghanistan with aircraft and drones. He described this as a reply to a “deliberate and unlawful incursion” by drones launched from Afghan territory. Afghan Taliban fighters were reported to have tried to enter Balochistan’s Gulistan sector the same week.
Pakistani forces said they killed several Afghan Taliban personnel in Kurram on October 17 and destroyed the Shipola base camp. Another exchange of heavy fire was reported at Angoor Adda around October 19 and 20.
The fighting between the two countries began in October 2025. The Pakistani military said then that 23 of its soldiers and more than 200 Taliban and affiliated militants had died, while the Taliban claimed to have killed 58 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab Lil Haq around the end of February after renewed clashes. Afghanistan responded with a border offensive after Pakistani air strikes on militant positions. Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar then asked both sides to stop, and they agreed a week-long ceasefire on the eve of Eidul Fitr on March 18.
At peace talks in Urumqi, China, in April, Pakistan made three demands of the Taliban. It wants Kabul to formally declare the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) a terrorist organisation, to dismantle its infrastructure, and to provide verifiable proof that it has done so. Sources say Islamabad’s position has hardened since.
Relations have been strained since the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021 and militancy surged in Pakistan’s northwest. Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering the TTP and the separatist Baloch Liberation Army. Last month Pakistan’s UN envoy said more than 4,700 Pakistanis had been killed over three years by “terrorism emanating from Afghanistan”. Pakistan has also bombed targets in Afghan cities, Kabul among them, saying it will pursue militants who threaten its citizens wherever they are.
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