Pak To Ask Taliban Chief To Rein In Terrorists After Mosque Attack: Report

Because the Taliban returned to energy in Kabul, Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in assaults

Islamabad:

Islamabad will ask the secretive supreme chief of Afghanistan’s Taliban to rein in terrorists in Pakistan after a suicide bombing killed scores of police in a mosque, officers mentioned Saturday.

Because the Taliban returned to energy in Kabul, Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in assaults in areas bordering Afghanistan, the place terrorists use rugged terrain to stage assaults and escape detection.

Detectives have blamed an affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban — essentially the most infamous terror outfit within the space — for the Monday blast in Peshawar which killed 84 individuals inside a fortified police headquarters.

The Pakistani Taliban share widespread lineage and beliefs with the Afghan Taliban, led by Hibatullah Akhundzada who points edicts from his hideaway within the southern metropolis of Kandahar.

Particular assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Faisal Karim Kundi, mentioned delegations could be despatched to Tehran and Kabul to “ask them to make sure that their soil just isn’t utilized by terrorists towards Pakistan”.

A senior Pakistani police official within the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province the place Monday’s blast befell instructed AFP the Kabul delegation would maintain “talks with the highest brass”.

“After we say prime brass, it means… Afghan Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada,” he mentioned on situation of anonymity.

Afghan officers didn’t instantly reply to AFP’s request for remark.

However on Wednesday International Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi warned Pakistan ought to “not move the blame to others”.

“They need to see the issues in their very own home,” he mentioned. “Afghanistan shouldn’t be blamed.”

In the course of the 20-year US-led intervention in Afghanistan, Islamabad was accused of giving covert assist to the Afghan Taliban even because the nation proclaimed a army alliance with the US.

However because the ultra-conservatives seized Kabul in 2021, relations with Pakistan have soured, partly over the resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban, often known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The TTP — shaped in 2007 by Pakistani terrorists who splintered off from the Afghan Taliban — as soon as held sway over swathes of northwest Pakistan however had been routed by a military offensive after 2014.

However over the primary 12 months of Taliban rule, Pakistan witnessed a 50 % uptick in terror assaults, concentrated within the border areas with Afghanistan and Iran, in response to the Pak Institute for Peace Research.

The TTP, infamous for capturing schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, has “arguably benefitted essentially the most of all of the overseas extremist teams in Afghanistan from the Taliban takeover”, a UN Safety Council report mentioned in Might 2022.

Final 12 months Kabul brokered peace talks between Islamabad and the TTP however the shaky truce collapsed.

(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)