Iran does not recognize the new government formed by the Taliban after they regained power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, amid a hasty withdrawal of foreign troops
Iranian border guards and the Afghan Taliban exchanged fire on the border on Sunday afternoon, according to sources in both countries, with the Sunni fundamentalists claiming one dead and one wounded in their ranks.
Iranian forces and the Taliban blamed each other for the incident.
“A clash took place between Iranian border guards and Taliban forces” in Hirmand County, Sistan-Baluchistan province (southeast), said Meisam Baranzadeh, the governor of the region, according to Iran’s FARS news agency.
Members of the Taliban “crossed the border illegally and Iranian forces retaliated,” Mr. Baranzadeh said. The conflict was “short” and the Iranian side is not mourning “any casualties,” he added, without elaborating.
According to Iran’s Tasnim news agency, the Taliban fired on houses in the village of Doost Mohammad in Hirmand, on the border. According to the same source, the Taliban attempted to raise their flag in an area “that does not belong to Afghan territory”.
Local sources told Reuters news agency that villagers fled their homes and sought cover when the fire intensified. The clash lasted at least an hour.
On the other side of the border, the authorities of the Afghan province of Nimroz (southwest) spoke of one dead and one wounded in the ranks of the Taliban security forces. “The cause of the clash is not yet clear,” Bahram Hakmal, a Nimroz police spokesman, told Reuters.
According to a statement from the authorities of the Afghan province cited by AFP, “Iranian border guards opened fire on a patrol of our border guard in the Kang area of ​​Nimroz.”
In late June, an Iranian border guard died in an “incident” at a post on the border with Afghanistan in the same province, according to Tehran.
Iran’s Deputy Interior Minister for Security Majeed Mir Ahmadi, referring to the Taliban’s “new provocative actions”, said he has repeatedly told Afghan officials that the Afghan border guards must be informed of the borders to avoid border tensions. .
In the last year, several skirmishes have been reported on Afghanistan’s borders with both Iran (west) and Pakistan (east).
Iran does not recognize the new government formed by the Taliban after they regained power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, amid a hasty withdrawal of foreign troops. The Taliban regime has not been recognized by any country in the world.
Tehran’s relations with the Taliban have been strained for years.
RES-EMP
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