News - Afghanistan

Pakistan's military attacked Afghan checkpoints in eastern Kunar province on Tuesday morning, killing one Afghan border policeman and injuring five others, a local official said.

At about 4:00 am local time, the Pakistani military started shelling border police outposts in the Din Shay area of Dangad district, Edrees Momand, a spokesman for the eastern zone border police in Afghanistan said. Afghan security forces then returned fire.

"The clash continued for nearly four hours," Mr Momand said, adding that after a lull of one hour, the shelling resumed.

"They started another attack on a border police vehicle, killing one and injuring five others," he said.

More Afghan security forces have been deployed in the area, he added.

Rockets, believed to have been fired from Pakistani soil, have been falling in Kunar province sporadically over the past year. In late June, a spokesman for the provincial governor said 850 rockets had fallen in Kunar in just a few weeks.

On Monday, Afghan lawmakers said that the National Security Council and President Hamid Karzai should be summoned to Parliament to respond to the cross border shelling.

MPs believe that the silence of the president and the security council proves that Pakistan's intelligence agency holds major sway within the top echelons of the Afghan government.

Lawmakers recently passed a vote of no confidence in the Afghan ministers of interior and defence over their failure to address the shelling issue.