Pakistan Army accuses Taliban of aiding terrorist infiltration across border
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The Pakistan Army has accused the Afghan Taliban of helping terrorists and smugglers cross the border into Pakistan.
The allegation was made by Lt. Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the head of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), during an interaction with journalists on Tuesday. A video of the briefing was released on Friday evening.
According to Lt Gen Chaudhry, Afghan Taliban forces fire at Pakistani border posts to “provide a cover for illegal infiltration of terrorists and even smugglers into Pakistan.” He said, “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.”
He added that the attacks were “extremely coordinated.” He said the militants “attack the posts and have smugglers’ vehicles pass from below.”
The ISPR spokesperson also addressed questions about how cross-border infiltration and smuggling occur despite the presence of Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps personnel along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He explained that Pakistan has positioned military posts at intervals of 15–25 kilometres along the 2,500 km-long boundary.
However, he said it was impossible to completely seal the border, noting that even the United States cannot fully stop illegal crossings along its border with Mexico.
Lt Gen Chaudhry denied the Afghan Taliban’s claim that Pakistan conducted overnight strikes inside Afghanistan. He said there are “no good and bad Taliban, and Pakistan makes no distinction between terrorists.”
He also detailed the ongoing intelligence-based operations (IBOs) against militants. Since November 4, Pakistan has carried out 4,910 IBOs, averaging 233 operations per day. He said 206 terrorists were killed in these actions.
Since January, Pakistan has conducted at least 67,023 IBOs across the country. Balochistan recorded over 53,000 operations, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over 12,800, and about 850 took place in other regions.
The military spokesperson said Pakistan had experienced 4,729 terrorist incidents since January. Out of these, 3,357 occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,346 in Balochistan, and 26 in other parts of the country.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have worsened due to repeated allegations from Pakistan that the Afghan Taliban are failing to block safe havens for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants. Both sides had agreed on a ceasefire last month. However, Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said on Friday that technically there was no ceasefire because it depended on the Afghan Taliban stopping attacks inside Pakistan, which “they had failed to do.”