Pakistani Officials Reject Taliban Foreign Militant Claims

Islamabad (GNP): Pakistani security officials have rejected claims by the Afghan Taliban that foreign militants have crossed into Afghanistan to fight the regime controlling Kabul.

The officials called the allegations, made on 26 and 27 September, “ridiculous”. They described the growing conflict inside Afghanistan as a result of tyrannical Taliban rule and of resistance by communities and ordinary Afghans seeking freedom from radical militants.

Their criticism went further, describing the Taliban as an extremist militant group holding Afghanistan against the will of its own people. In their view, the regime has broken every condition of the 2020 Doha Accord, which covered not supporting terrorism, forming an inclusive broad based government and respecting the rights of women, children and other communities.

The officials also accused Kabul of hosting terrorists from across the world. They named groups including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), IUM, the Tajikistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They held the Taliban responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Pakistanis through its allies, the TTP and BLA.

Turning to the allegations themselves, the officials pointed to what they called shifting accounts from Kabul. According to them, the Taliban first described captured civilians as former Afghan Army soldiers and later said they belonged to the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP).

The same doubts, the officials said, apply to the “confessional” videos of captured fighters released by the Taliban. They argued that international media outlets reporting the claims should have studied those videos first.

In their account, the men shown were unarmed, had glowing faces and wore well-ironed, colourful shalwar qameez. The officials asked whether that is how militants fighting in rugged mountains in remote parts of the world look.

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The officials also rejected the Taliban’s explanation of the fighting in northern and eastern Afghanistan. They said the violence in Badakhshan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces since June is not driven by ideology.

Instead, they described it as a growing challenge to the Taliban’s absolute control over gold mining in those provinces.

Pakistani security officials said, “Afghan Taliban are hosting terrorists from all over the world.”