Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported on Saturday that border officials had responded decisively to an attack by the Taliban from Nimrus province. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi threatened the Taliban government and called on Kabul to abide by a decades-old pact on the use of water.
The more than 1000-kilometre-long river is dammed on the Afghan side in the Helmand province of the same name to generate electricity and irrigate agriculture. In Iran, the river flows into Lake Hamun, whose water level fluctuates seasonally and at times even dried up.