Afghan and Pakistani delegations in Doha for crisis talks over cross-border violence

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan and Pakistani delegations were in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Saturday, for talks on defusing the deadliest crisis between them in several years, after more than a week of fighting killed dozens of people and injured hundreds on both sides.

Both governments sent their defense ministers to lead the talks, which, Pakistan said, would focus on “immediate measures to end cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and restore peace and stability along the border.”

Each country says it is responding to aggression from the other. Afghanistan denies harboring militants who carry out attacks in border areas.

Regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have called for calm, as the violence threatened to further destabilize a region where groups including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida are trying to resurface.

A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired Friday evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.

Pakistani security officials confirmed to The Associated Press that there were strikes on two districts in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province.

The targets were hideouts of the militant Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. One said the operation was a direct response to the suicide bombing of a security forces compound in Mir Ali, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province a day earlier.

The Pakistani Air Force raids killed dozens of armed fighters and there were no civilian deaths, they said.

But Afghan officials said the aerial assaults killed at least 10 civilians, including women, children and local cricketers. The attacks prompted the national cricket board to boycott an upcoming series in Pakistan.

On Saturday, several thousand people attended funeral prayers in Paktika. They sat in the open air as loudspeakers broadcast sermons and condemnation.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, in a statement, criticized the “repeated crimes of Pakistani forces and the violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.”

Such acts were deemed provocative and viewed as “deliberate attempts” to prolong the conflict, he added.

The two countries share a 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border known as the Durand Line, but Afghanistan has never recognized it.

Pakistan is grappling with surging militancy, especially in areas bordering Afghanistan. It also accuses its nuclear-armed neighbor and rival India of backing armed groups, without providing any evidence.

Pakistan's army chief, Asim Munir, urged Afghans to choose “mutual security over perpetual violence and progress over hardline obscurantism.”

“The Taliban must rein in the proxies who have sanctuaries in Afghanistan,” he told an audience on Saturday at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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Associated Press writers Abdul Qahar Afghan in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sajjad Tarakzai in Islamabad, and Riaz Khan, in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.