Uneasy Calm On Iran-Afghan Front
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia on Friday reported its western border peaceful one day after a bloody clash with Iran heightened the risk of war between the two neighbors.
The Taliban said two Afghani civilians were killed and five wounded by Iranian fire on Thursday.
"The border is calm today," Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said. But he said it might not remain so because Taliban might run out of patience.
The Taliban rejected an invitation from a U.N. envoy to negotiate an end to the tensions with Iran on Friday.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi issued the call for talks in neighboring Pakistan to try to ease longstanding tensions between Iran and the Taliban.
Iran said on Thursday it repelled a Taliban attack on its border on Thursday morning, advising the United Nations it took "some limited and proportionate measures" in self-defense.
"A cross-border attack by the Taliban militia constituting a flagrant aggression and provocation was repelled and military operation was halted," Iran said in a letter to the U.N.
The Taliban denied it had launched any attacks and charged that Iranian forces attacked six border villages in the western province of Herat, killing two civilians and wounding five.
Mutmaen said the Taliban forces might not show restraint for much longer: "If we have more repeats of Iran's attacks, then our patience will run out."
Predominantly Shi'ite Moslem Iran has been at loggerheads with the purist Sunni Taliban since the militia swept into Kabul two years ago and ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Tensions mounted in August after 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist disappeared from Iran's consulate-general in Mazar-i-Sharif when Taliban fighters captured the opposition northern alliance stronghold.
All but two of the Iranians were eventually found dead. The Taliban says the Iranians were killed by renegade militiamen acting without orders and has promised they will be punished.
Iran has massed more than 200,000 troops along its shared border with Afghanistan for war games. The Taliban has sent an estimated 10,000 troops.
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