"An Afghan civilian was killed over the weekend by the military shooting into a residential area in Goshta, in the eastern part of Nangarhar province on the Pakistani border. Despite the current furor over civilian casualties, neither the Afghan government, nor Afghan president Hamid Karzai - who is quite vocal in criticizing civilian casualties caused by NATO - nor the international media are drawing much attention to this incident. Afghan officials say these cross-border firings have happened a dozen times in the last month alone. The military doing the shooting is not NATO's but Pakistan's, which may explain some of Karzai's and the media's silence. For the last several years, Afghanistan and Pakistan's militaries have lobbed artillery shells at each other. It's never been very intense - a dozen times a year, with a few dozen killed in the process. But the rate at which these clashes take place is accelerating.[...] Both sides justify the shootings by claiming they are responding to provocation or cross-border militant traffic.[...] The Durand Line separating Afghanistan and Pakistan is famously porous, and Afghanistan has never officially recognized it as its eastern border. The Taliban move freely across it; so do the tribes, communities, and families that live on either side. In fact, the only time the Afghanistan-Pakistan border seems to be closed to traffic is when Pakistan halts NATO supply convoys moving into Afghanistan."