Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has said that Afghan forces open fire at Pakistani checkposts across the border to facilitate the infiltration of terrorists into the country.
He made the comments during a briefing with journalists on November 25, a video of which was released by the ISPR on Friday evening.
“Borders are always mutually guarded. Both countries [guard] them. Now on the other side is such a country whose posts first engage your posts through fire and an exchange begins. And then they have them (terrorists) pass from the gaps in between,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said.
“There are extremely coordinated attacks. [They] attack the posts and have smugglers’ vehicles pass from below,” the military spokesman further said.
He noted that a “narrative” was made that questioned how terrorists could infiltrate the Pak-Afghan border, how smuggling was carried out, and how non-custom paid vehicles passed through it if the army and the Frontier Corps were stationed there.
The DG ISPR then showed pictures of fences, even in snow-clad areas, on the border. He highlighted that military posts were also set up at a distance of about 15-25 kilometres.
The military spokesperson noted suggestions to “hermetically seal” the border, and wondered whether even the United States, with its vast resources, was able to “hermetically seal” its border with Mexico.
During the same briefing, Lt Gen Chaudhry refuted allegations by the Afghan Taliban that Pakistan had conducted overnight strikes in Afghanistan.
“In our view, there are no good and bad Taliban,” he said, adding that there was “no distinction” between terrorists.
‘Over 67,000 IBOs conducted since Jan’
Detailing the counter-terrorism efforts, the DG ISPR said 4,910 intelligence-based operations (IBOs) had been carried out since November 4, amounting to 233 IBOs per day.
“The intensity of the kinetic counter-terrorism effort is going up,” he said, noting that 206 terrorists were killed in these operations.
Providing a breakdown of the security situation since January, Lt Gen Chaudhry said 67,023 IBOs had been conducted across the country since then.
Balochistan had the highest number of such operations, with over 53,000, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had over 12,800, and the rest of the country recorded about 850.
The military spokesperson said the country had witnessed 4,729 terrorist incidents since January, with 3,357 in KP, 1,346 in Balochistan and 26 in other regions.
More to follow
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