50 Afghan soldiers killed, 100 injured as Pakistan returns fire at Chaman border

ISLAMABAD - Inspector General (IG) Frontier Corps (FC) Balochistan Maj Gen Nadeem Anjum on Sunday claimed that 50 Afghan security personnel were killed and another 100 injured as Pakistani forces retaliated to unprovoked firing by Afghan border forces in Chaman on Saturday.

He added, however, that "we are not happy over their losses since they are our Muslim brothers".

The IG FC was briefing the media over a recent cross-border attack in Chaman, in which 12 people were killed and 40 injured when Afghan border forces opened fire on security personnel guarding a census team, although Afghanistan had been informed of the exercise in advance.

The attack caused residents in Killi Luqman, Killi Jahangir and Badshah Adda Kahol evacuating their homes as Chaman was shut down and security ramped up in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan.

The FC Balochistan chief said four or five check posts were also destroyed when Pakistani border guards retaliated to the cross-border attack.

Gen Anjum said that on May 5, Afghanistan pleaded for ceasefire, which Pakistan accepted. The FC Balochistan chief said that Afghan authorities targeted civilians even though they had been informed about the on-going census exercise.

Earlier, Commander Southern Command Lt Gen Aamir Riaz termed the cross-border attack as 'shameful'. "This was a shameful act to target civilians at the border villages of Pakistan," Riaz told journalists at Chaman during a visit to the area.