Islamabad: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers that Islamabad will strike terrorist hideouts inside neighbouring country if latter were unable to rein in anti-Pakistan militants.

He made remarks in an inclusive interview with Voice of America published on Wednesday. Asif’s comments come on back of his earlier statement that banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were using Afghan soil for carrying out attacks in Pakistan. He said that in his visit to Afghanistan in late-February, he reminded Taliban administration to live up to their cross-border security commitments forbidding terrorists from using Afghan soil to plan and conduct attacks on Pakistan or Islamabad will take action.

“We have communicated to Kabul during our last visit that please, as our neighbours and brothers, whatever is emanating from Afghan soil is your responsibility,” he said. “If that is not done, at some point we’ll have to resort to some measures, which will definitely wherever [terrorists] are, their sanctuaries on Afghan soil we’ll have to hit them,” he said. “We’ll have to hit them because we cannot tolerate this situation for long.”  “They responded well, really well. Perhaps for them to disentangle TTP from this stage of course they want to disentangle, this is my impression they want to disentangle but this disentanglement, perhaps, will take time.

“But they are doing well and we wish them well and we don’t want to get into situation where this situation with TTP escalates and we do something that is not to liking of our neighbours and brothers in Kabul.”

During interview, Asif was asked whether he believed Taliban’s claim that TTP were not using Afghan soil to carry out attacks in Pakistan. He responded by saying, “They still operate from their soil.” When asked whether this point had been raised with Americans, Asif said, “What is use of talking to Washington? They left that sort of hardware on foreign soil because they couldn’t carry it.” She asked whether Islamabad needed help of US in fighting terrorism in Pakistan. “I do not see any logic in that,” he said. “My personal view is that we can take care of this menace ourselves,” Asif said, giving examples of Zarb-i-Azb and Raddul Fassad. He termed resurgence in terrorism in country to be “Grave mistake” by previous PTI government.

Published in The Daily National Courier, April, 14 2023

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