Afghan, Pakistanis clash near border

Border fighting between Afghan and Pakistani forces has killed 13 people, including seven school-age children, Afghan officials said Monday, as the most serious clashes in years between the two countries extended into a second day.

The skirmish in the eastern province of Paktia killed six Afghan border police along with the seven students, said Gen. Murad Ali, a deputy corps commander of the Afghan army. He said 25 civilians and three border police had been wounded in the fighting, which he said ended at 8 a.m. Monday.

Paktia's governor has said that artillery hit a school, bazaar and clinic.

Lawmakers, Defense Ministry officials and police met in Paktia over the fighting and were expected to make a statement later Monday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it helped to facilitate the meeting but had not been involved in any of the fighting.

Ali said the Afghan army had transferred extra weapons to the scene of the fighting but hadn't fired any of them.

Pakistani officials could not immediately be reached for comment. On Sunday, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad denied Pakistani forces had hit civilians. He reported six Afghan soldiers had been killed in a two-hour gunbattle.

Tension has been running high between Afghanistan and Pakistan, its eastern neighbor, over controlling the 1,510-mile border and stemming the flow of Taliban and al-Qaida militants that stage cross-border attacks inside Afghanistan. Pakistan's move to fence parts of the disputed frontier has also angered Afghanistan.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi accused Pakistani forces of encroaching 1 to 2 miles inside Paktia province's Jajai district.

"Border police tried to stop them, and the Pakistani army started firing heavy weapons toward the Afghan forces," he told a news conference Sunday.

But Pakistan's Arshad denied its forces had entered Afghan territory. He accused the Afghan army of sparking the gunbattle with "unprovoked" fire at about six Pakistani border posts in Kurram Agency, a Pakistani tribal region opposite Paktia.

The incident was likely to enflame the already acrimonious relations between the two key U.S. allies _ just two weeks after a reconciliation meeting between Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Turkey where they agreed to jointly fight terrorism.

Afghanistan accuses Islamabad of harboring and helping supporters of the former Taliban regime ousted in late 2001, which Pakistan denies.