Pakistan closed border crossings with Afghanistan on Sunday after an exchange of fire between security forces on both sides, officials in Islamabad said, marking a fresh escalation in bilateral tensions.

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 mai

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