{"id":8506,"date":"2022-02-18T10:38:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-18T10:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=8506"},"modified":"2022-02-18T10:38:31","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T10:38:31","slug":"8506","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2022\/02\/8506\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan steps up military operation along Durand Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – Reuters has reported that\u00a0Pakistan\u2019s military has stepped up operations along the Durand Line with Afghanistan in recent weeks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Militant groups have killed at least 14 Pakistani soldiers in attacks over the past month, three of them carried out by fighters entering from Afghanistan, the Pakistani military said.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s new Taliban rulers, struggling with a humanitarian crisis, have denied that Afghan territory was\u00a0used in any of the attacks. But despite such assurances, disputes linked to the border, which has been a bone of contention between the neighbours for decades, could undermine their relations.<\/p>\n

The Pakistani military said six insurgents were\u00a0killed\u00a0in the latest clash in Balochistan on Wednesday. \u201cOperations to eliminate such perpetrators of terrorist acts in Pakistan will continue,\u201d the military said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A top Pakistani security official with direct knowledge of border operations told\u00a0Reuters<\/em>: \u201cWe have stepped up intelligence-based operations to ensure that we deny entry to militants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large areas on the Pakistani side of the border were out of the control of the government for decades, ruled by fiercely independent Pashtun tribes, whose communities often straddle both sides of the unmarked border.<\/p>\n

But Pakistan is determined to end all that, aiming to bring the rugged lands under central rule, demarcate the border with a fence and control who comes and goes with a tight border-control system, another official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re targeting anyone, whether insurgent or militant, who is a threat,\u201d said the second official, who also declined to be identified.<\/p>\n

Pakistan has enjoyed good relations with the Afghan Taliban for years even though Pakistan was officially an ally of the United States during its 20-year occupation of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

But as Pakistan grapples with violence by militants, its appeals to the Taliban to control their side of the border have not brought the action it hopes to see.<\/p>\n

Increasingly frustrated, Pakistani officials have been pressing the Taliban to deny space and resources to the militants, an appeal repeated by National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf when he\u00a0visited\u00a0Kabul last month.<\/p>\n

Yusuf\u2019s office did not respond to a\u00a0Reuters<\/em>\u00a0request for comment.<\/p>\n

The Pakistani military\u2019s information office did not respond to a request for comment about the scope of its operations and what the military would do if the attacks from Afghan soil continued.<\/p>\n

In Kabul, the Taliban reject suggestions Afghan territory is used for attacks into Pakistan and hope talks can solve the problem. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to solve such actions through diplomatic ways,\u201d defence ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi told\u00a0Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Taliban tried late last year to facilitate talks between Pakistan and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, but the talks\u00a0fell apart after a few weeks.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – Reuters has reported that\u00a0Pakistan\u2019s military has stepped up operations along the Durand Line with Afghanistan in recent weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,225,5,8,4,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security_","category-peace","category-corruption","category-politics_","category-governance","category-news_","category-afghanistan","category-headline"],"views":432,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}