But on Wednesday, both the BSF and the BDR troops started digging in and calling in reinforcement - bringing back memories of a fierce borderclash between the two sides two years ago.
Though El Salvador and Honduras went to the International Court of Justice to settle their land border, all three countries still clash over fishing rights in the Gulf of Fonseca.
Efforts to carve out that link may have sparked another incident in February that brought Lebanese Sunnis into a direct clash with the Lebanese army near the country's eastern border with Syria.