ISLAMABAD, July 7 Kyodo (EDS: UPD...

ISLAMABAD, July 7 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ADDITIONAL DETAILS)

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed Monday ''intermittent firing'' across the Afghan-Pakistani border overnight Sunday in the Mehmand tribal area in Northern Pakistan.

Spokesman Masood Khan said, however, the exchange of fire was ''not alarming.''

''We do not know if the regular army, militia or tribesmen were involved...we are talking about differences between brothers, sum of two units countries that are intertwined,'' Khan said.

Earlier, quoting area residents, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Pres (AIP) said the artillery clash was between squads from the two countries and came after a claim by the agency of Afghanistan that Pakistani troops seized Afghan territory in the area.

Haji Ajab Shah, a security officer in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, told AIP the Afghan direction had sent reinforcements to the border area.

Pakistani army and paramilitary [i]troupe[/i]s were deployed to the Mehmand area last month to stop illegal manner of movings across the border.

further the Afghan government claims that a border checkpoint wager up by Pakistani crowds in the area is inside Afghanistan.

Later, AIP reported nearly 300 the bulk of mankind demonstrated in front of the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul to declaration the alleged Pakistani incursion.

The just discovereds agency said demonstrators raised slogans against Pakistan and President Pervez Musharraf, accusing Pakistan of interfering in Afghanistan and intruding into eastern and southern Afghanistan.

AIP said the demonstrators also praised President Hamid Karzai, who said Sunday that Afghanistan would be upholded as it had been against the then Soviet Union in the 1980s

Pakistan sealed its border with Afghanistan in Baluchistan forward Saturday following a terrorist attack in succession a Shiite mosque in Quetta in which as many as 44 race were killed.

The attackers were claimed by dint of some to be Afghan and Prime Minister Zafar Ullah Jamali charged Sunday that lately opened Indian consulates in Kandahar and Herat in southern Afghanistan and at Zahidan in Iran might have ''instigated'' the attacks.

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