Reuters/Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan

Afghan women use megaphones as they shout slogans against Pakistan during a demonstration in Jalalabad yesterday
Hundreds of protesters marched in Afghanistan’s east and south yesterday, demanding a military response to weeks of shelling from Pakistan, as a senior US commander said Nato-led forces were talking with Pakistan to try to end the bombardment.
Relations between the two neighbours have been strained by weeks of mortar shelling that Kabul says has killed at least 42 civilians and wounded scores more. 
Over 800 rockets have crossed the border since early June, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Afghanistan will not respond with military force, over-ruling his defence and interior ministers who had sought permission to return fire.
Protesters called on the government to retaliate if the cross-border shelling does not stop. The issue has infuriated Afghans from ordinary villagers to the top echelons of power.
“The government must respond with heavy artillery onto Pakistan’s soil,” protestor Ahmad Janan told Reuters in Lashkar Gah. He was carrying a banner that read “The blood of our innocent people will not be spilt in vain”.
US Lieutenant General David Rodriguez said yesterday that foreign forces were concerned about the persistent shelling and were meeting with Pakistani counterparts to “prevent senseless shooting from occurring in the future.” 
“That border over there is a disputed region and for whatever reason it’s going on and I’m not sure what’s behind it but I know it’s not the right thing to do for anybody,” he said at a change of command ceremony, before leaving his post in Afghanistan.
Rodriguez had been the second most senior US commander in Afghanistan and commander of day-to-day operations for the 150,000-strong Nato-led force. 
Pakistan has repeatedly rejected Afghan allegations of large scale cross-border shelling, saying that only “a few accidental rounds” may have crossed the border when it pursued militants who had attacked its security forces.
Some 700 people gathered in Lashkar Gah, provincial capital of southern Helmand, said Dawood Ahmadi, spokesman for the provincial governor. Another 400 marched in eastern Jalalabad city, senior police detective Masoom Khan said.
Demonstrations in Afghanistan often turn violent but both protests yesterday ended peacefully after about three hours.
Afghan officials say several districts of Afghanistan’s volatile Kunar and Nangarhar provinces have been under attack from Pakistan. Both Kunar and Nangarhar share a border with lawless areas of Pakistan.
“We are brothers with the people of Pakistan but its government and army are behind the killings of many Afghans,” said Gul Nawaz in Jalalabad, which is just an hour’s drive from the Pakistan border, and has a thriving cross-border trade.
“The government must allow the army to fire back and revenge the deaths of innocent people,” he said.