Pak Army Accuses Afghan Taliban Of Facilitating Terrorist Infiltration Across Border

The Pakistan Army has alleged that the Afghanistan Taliban was facilitating terrorists to infiltrate the border for carrying out acts of terror in the country.

Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, who is head of the army’s media wing the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), made the allegation during an interaction with journalists on Tuesday, a video of which was released on Friday evening.

According to the spokesperson, the Afghan Taliban forces open fire at Pakistani border posts, "providing a cover for illegal infiltration of terrorists and even smugglers into Pakistan".

“Borders are always mutually guarded. Both countries (guard) them. Now on the other side is such a country whose posts first engage your posts through fire and an exchange begins. And then they have them (terrorists) pass from the gaps in between,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said.

“There are extremely coordinated attacks. (They) attack the posts and have smugglers’ vehicles pass from below,” the military spokesman said.

The spokesperson also talked about a narrative based on a question that how could terrorists infiltrate through the Pakistan-Afghan border, smuggling carried out and non-custom paid vehicles pass through it if the army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps troops were stationed along the border.

He said Pakistan had set up military posts at a distance of 15-25 km on the 2,500 km long border but added that it was not possible to completely seal the border which even a country like the US was unable to do and stop illegal infiltration through its border with Mexico.

Lt Gen Chaudhry also refuted allegations by the Afghan Taliban that Pakistan had conducted overnight strikes in Afghanistan. He added that there are “no good and bad Taliban and Pakistan makes no distinction between terrorists”.

He also talked about the ongoing intelligence-based operations (IBOs) against the rebels, saying that 4,910 such operations had been carried out since November 4, amounting to 233 IBOs per day.

He added that 206 terrorists were killed in these operations.

He said that since January, at least 67,023 IBOs had been conducted across the country.

Balochistan had the highest number of such operations, with over 53,000, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) had over 12,800, and the rest of the country recorded about 850.

The military spokesperson said there had been 4,729 terrorist incidents since January, with 3,357 in KP, 1,346 in Balochistan and 26 in other parts of the country.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated amidst regular allegations by Pakistan regarding failure of the Afghan regime to deny safe havens to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists.

They had agreed on a ceasefire last month but Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said on Friday that technically there was no truce as it was contingent on the Afghan Taliban stopping terrorist attacks in Pakistan which they had failed to do.