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Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fought a gun battle with Tunisian troops in a frontier town on Friday as Libya's conflict spilled over its borders.
Pro-Gaddafi forces shelled the town of Dehiba, damaging buildings and wounding at least one resident, and a squad drove into the town in a truck chasing anti-Gaddafi rebels.
Tunisia summoned Libya's ambassador to protest against the incursions.
Tunisian deputy foreign minister Radhouane Nouicer, speaking on Al Jazeera television, said casualties had been inflicted, including a young girl.
"We summoned the Libyan envoy and gave him a strong protest because we won't tolerate any repetition of such violations. Tunisian soil is a red line and no one is allowed to breach it," he said.
The Libyan troops were chasing rebels from the Western Mountains region who fled into Tunisia in the past few days after Gaddafi forces overran a border post they had earlier seized.
A Reuters cameraman who crossed into Libya saw the bodies of three Gaddafi soldiers on the ground. It was not clear if they had been shot by the rebels or by the Tunisian military.
Tunisian border guards had shut down the border, he said. They were laying barbed wire and fortifying their positions.
Columns of Libyan refugees fleeing the fighting in the Western Mountains were reaching the crossing but were unable to get through.
Reuters photographers in Dehiba, a short distance from the border, saw several abandoned pick-up trucks which Gaddafi loyalists had driven. One had a multiple rocket launcher on the back. Another, which had overturned and lay upside down in the sand, was fitted with a heavy caliber machine gun.
Two residents told Reuters that shells had fallen on the town from pro-Gaddafi positions across the border.
"Rounds from the bombardment are falling on houses.. A Tunisian woman was injured," one resident, called Ali, told Reuters by telephone.
Pro-Gaddafi forces shelled the town of Dehiba, damaging buildings and wounding at least one resident, and a squad drove into the town in a truck chasing anti-Gaddafi rebels.
Tunisia summoned Libya's ambassador to protest against the incursions.
Tunisian deputy foreign minister Radhouane Nouicer, speaking on Al Jazeera television, said casualties had been inflicted, including a young girl.
"We summoned the Libyan envoy and gave him a strong protest because we won't tolerate any repetition of such violations. Tunisian soil is a red line and no one is allowed to breach it," he said.
The Libyan troops were chasing rebels from the Western Mountains region who fled into Tunisia in the past few days after Gaddafi forces overran a border post they had earlier seized.
A Reuters cameraman who crossed into Libya saw the bodies of three Gaddafi soldiers on the ground. It was not clear if they had been shot by the rebels or by the Tunisian military.
Tunisian border guards had shut down the border, he said. They were laying barbed wire and fortifying their positions.
Columns of Libyan refugees fleeing the fighting in the Western Mountains were reaching the crossing but were unable to get through.
Reuters photographers in Dehiba, a short distance from the border, saw several abandoned pick-up trucks which Gaddafi loyalists had driven. One had a multiple rocket launcher on the back. Another, which had overturned and lay upside down in the sand, was fitted with a heavy caliber machine gun.
Two residents told Reuters that shells had fallen on the town from pro-Gaddafi positions across the border.
"Rounds from the bombardment are falling on houses.. A Tunisian woman was injured," one resident, called Ali, told Reuters by telephone.
