After increasing political tensions between Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan, a firefight has broken out on the border. 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. The militant Islamist Taliban did not comment on the incident. According to IRNA, two border guards were killed and two civilians were injured in the skirmish.

Incidents have repeatedly occurred on the border of neighboring countries since the Islamists took power in the summer of 2021. In the past, both sides usually spoke of misunderstandings; there is no fundamental dispute about the course of the 921-kilometre-long border.

Recently, however, a dispute broke out over the water of the border river Helmand. 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, which guarantees Iran a minimum annual amount 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.

The Taliban said drought and climate change made it impossible for authorities to get enough water flowing to the neighboring country. Just a few days later, Iran's IRNA news agency published satellite photos and contradicted the group. Researchers have been warning for years of an increase in droughts in the region, which is particularly hard hit by the consequences of climate change.