July 2, 2012 - 19:09 AMT
Kabul accuses Pakistan of shelling villages, threatens with Security Council

Afghanistan on Monday, July 2 threatened to report Pakistan to the UN Security Council over what Kabul alleges is the shelling of its villages along the border between the two countries.

Authorities in the eastern province of Kunar, a hotbed for Taliban militants, have complained for weeks of being bombarded from across the frontier, blaming the barrage on Pakistani security forces.

Thousands of villagers in Kunar fled their homes as a result of "Pakistani rocket shelling" in recent weeks, officials said last week.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Faramarz Tamana said Kabul was discussing the attacks with Islamabad and President Hamid Karzai would raise the matter with Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf when he visits in the coming weeks.

"If our bilateral discussions regarding this issue brings no result, we will refer this issue to the United Nations Security Council," he told AFP.

Afghanistan and Pakistan typically blame each other for Taliban violence plaguing both sides of their porous 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) border, which stretches from the northeastern Hindu Kush mountains across eastern and southern Afghanistan.