Overnight exchange of fire along the Afghan-Pakistan border kills 5 and wounds 8, officials say

An overnight exchange of fire between Afghan forces and Pakistani troops along the two countries' tense border killed five Afghan civilians and wounded eight.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — An overnight exchange of fire between Afghan forces and Pakistani troops along the two countries' tense border killed five Afghan civilians and wounded five others, while three civilians were also wounded on the Pakistani side, officials from the two countries said Saturday.

Each side has blamed the other for triggering the clash in violation of a tenuous two-month ceasefire.

Those killed in the border area near the Afghan city of Spin Boldak, in southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, included three children and one woman, said Ali Mohammad Haqmal, the head of information of Spin Boldak District.

Pakistani police and a hospital official in the Pakistani city of Chaman, Mohammad Awais, said three people, including a woman, were wounded in the shooting and shelling that came from the Afghan side. The clashes lasted until dawn Saturday, police said.

Tension between the two countries has been high since October, when deadly border clashes killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants, and wounded hundreds on both sides. The violence erupted after explosions in Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Oct. 9 that the Taliban government blamed on Pakistan and vowed to avenge.