The latest cross-border attack of fugitive Taliban terrorists has mounted tensions between Islamabad and Kabul. Pakistan suffered a huge loss on Saturday when over two dozen security men were killed in another pre-dawn onslaught by 300 terrorists on seven Pakistani check posts in Chitral. There are conflicting reports about the actual death toll in the attack as the intense firing between the security forces and the terrorists continued for hours. The ISPR put it at 25 while the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Malakand division claimed killing 80 security personnel and capturing another six. Lodging a strong protest with Afghanistan’s envoy in Islamabad, Pakistan stressed that ISAF and the Afghan National Army need to take effective measures to thwart such cross-border incursions by the terrorists from their sanctuaries in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan bordering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pakistan’s military authorities have held the inadequate presence of Nato and Afghan security forces in the northeastern region of Afghanistan responsible for the attacks. It also said that despite intelligence sharing for the last one year about the large concentrations of the Taliban in the area, Nato and Afghan forces did not take any action against them.
Saturday’s attack on Pakistan’s border security personnel was the sixth deadly attempt since April 21 when 14 Frontier Corps soldiers were killed by terrorists in the Kharkari area of Dir. In four other attacks, more than 50 security men, including civilians, lost their lives. Since the US-led Nato forces withdrew from remote outposts in Kunar and Nuristan, a security vacuum had been created there. The situation required prompt and stringent security measures from Pakistan. But we failed in doing so. Before demanding the Afghan government to check the terrorists, we should question ourselves about what are we doing for our own defence. How effective are our own security measures? Instead of pointing a finger at Nato and Afghan forces, it is time that Pakistan should increase its own security and reinforce the borders. No doubt, ensuring security along the 2,430 kilometre long rugged and porous border that Pakistan shares with Afghanistan is a strenuous task; however, extraordinary situations also entail extraordinary efforts.
Our government and the military authorities should also not buy the TTP’s denial regarding the involvement of the Afghan Taliban in their cross-border raids. It is evident that the Taliban, who had fled from Swat, Dir and Bajaur during the military offensives have taken refuge in the bordering provinces of Kunar and Nuristan and organised themselves with the help of the Afghan Taliban. In collusion with each other, they plan, attack and kill not only Pakistani troops deployed at isolated border checkposts but also the innocent villagers living nearby. We should come out of the fallacy that surrounds the ‘good Taliban’ and ‘bad Taliban’ notion. There is no such division. The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are one and the same, bent upon carrying on their terrorist activities with impunity. The presence of Taliban sympathisers in both our parliament and the military ranks is not a secret. Our military has been nourishing the Taliban, including the Haqqani network, as its strategic assets since decades. Despite suffering massive human and property losses, our military still seems reluctant in taking action against its Afghan proxies. We have been repeating in this space that these jihadi outfits have to be disbanded once and for all. We need to be for our own survival. Protests to the Afghan government for the menace of terrorism, which we ourselves have inflicted upon us, would not serve any purpose until we change our policy and stop supporting these terror outfits.
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