Armed clashes broke out between Iranian border guards and Afghan Taliban fighters, Iran’s state news agency reported on the 27th local time.
IRNA news agency reported that Iranian forces and the Taliban clashed on the southern border of Sistan-Ba-Baluchitan and engaged in rifle fire, resulting in several casualties in the process.
Iran’s military authorities said through their embassy in Afghanistan that they had stopped firing in order to prevent the communication with the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense from escalating.
Shiite Iran, which has recently suffered from a water shortage, has been at odds with Sunni Afghans over the issue of opening the sluice gates of the Afghan dam on the Helmand River, which crosses the border in the southeastern province of Sistan-Ba-Baluchistan.
Iranian President Sayyed Ebrahim Raisi recently urged the Afghan regime to open the floodgates to the dam, threatening that “if timely action is not taken, you will regret it in the future.”
