ISLAMABAD, 10 January 2005 — Uneasy calm prevailed yesterday on the Pak-Afghan border, as Islamabad and Kabul have increased the number of troops on both sides of the porous border amid reports that coalition forces have come under fresh attack in Khost province of Afghanistan.
Reports reaching from eastern Khost province of Afghanistan suggest that a military jeep of the coalition forces was destroyed in a remote-controlled mine, known as Improvised Explosive Devices, at Matoon Ghwar area causing damage to the vehicle and inflicting casualties on the US and its allies. Some reports suggest that four personnel of the coalition forces were either killed or injured in the attack on Saturday.
In another relative development, Afghan security guards defused eight missiles and two artillery shells connected to batteries in Pathan district of Khost province.
Sources close to Khial Baz, chief of security of the 25th Division, said that more than 150 troops have been sent to the Pak-Afghan border, where the two sides clashed this week resulting in the killing of one Pakistani militiaman Shah Hussain Turi and injuring two others, while in retaliation, Pakistani officials dealing with the situation at the border, claimed to have inflicted more damage and killed many Afghan soldiers to revenge the unprovoked firing from Afghan forces.
However, Afghan Consul General in Peshawar, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, has denied the killing of Afghan soldiers and termed it a minor incident.
The presence of military vehicles on roads and areas in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, bordering Khost, sources said, was also indicative of the fact that tension has still not been subsided between the two sides.
It was also learned that people in Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, feared that US planes might take action or bomb the area on the Pak-Afghan border because of the happenings in Khost, wherein an US spy plane was seen intruding into Pakistani airspace and hovering in the air for about 15 minutes.
Personnel of the Frontier Corp, sources said, fired 80 mortar shells and used as many as 23 cannons for more than two hours on Jan. 4 to hit the Afghan security posts in retaliation to fire opened by Afghan National Army on the Frontier Corp personnel visiting Saidgai area of North Waziristan Agency to salvage the wreckage of US spy plane, which had crashed in the area the previous night in mysterious circumstances.
