ISLAMABAD, Oct 15, (AP): More than a dozen Afghan civilians were killed and over 100 others were wounded as renewed fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan broke out along their shared border early Wednesday, officials said. The countries have traded fire along the border since Saturday, when dozens were killed across multiple border regions.

Afghanistan claimed to have killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight operations in retaliation for what it called repeated violations of Afghan territory and airspace. Pakistan’s army said 23 troops were killed. The fighting on Wednesday erupted before dawn, according to officials on both sides. Pakistan TV, the main state-owned television station, reported later in the day that Afghanistan was seeking a ceasefire on the border near the village of Chaman where the fighting was concentrated.

Pakistani security officials and state-run media accused Afghan troops of "unprovoked fire” that was repulsed in Kurram, a district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Security officials and television reports said Pakistan’s military overnight killed 30 Afghan Taliban fighters near Kurram in Afghanistan’s Khost province, destroyed a large training facility in Afghanistan used by the Pakistani Taliban.

Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesman for the Taliban government in Afghanistan's capital Kabul, said Pakistan used light and heavy weapons in assaults on the Spin Boldak district in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, which lies opposite Pakistan’s southwestern border town of Chaman. Afghan forces returned fire and killed several Pakistani soldiers, seized military posts and captured weapons including tanks, Mujahid said.

Pakistan’s military rejected the Afghan claim Wednesday, saying in a statement that the fighting along the Chaman border was orchestrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan "through divided villages in the area, with no regard for the civilian population." The attack was repulsed by Pakistani forces, which killed between 15 and 20 Afghan Taliban and wounded many others in Spin Boldak, a border city in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, the military said.