(Reuters) -Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan on Sunday, Pakistani officials said, following exchanges of fire between the forces of the two countries.

Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani border posts late Saturday, with the country’s ministry of defence saying this was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes in Afghanistan earlier in the week.

Pakistan said that it had responded with gun and artillery fire. Pakistani security officials said that a number of Afghan border posts were destroyed in retaliatory attacks.

The exchange of fire was mostly over on Sunday morning, Pakistani security officials said. But in Pakistan’s Kurram area, intermittent gunfire continued, according to local officials and residents.

Pakistan’s two main border crossings with Afghanistan, at

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