Situation along Pak-Afghan border remained tense during 2012. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
A report by an Islamabad-based think tank shows that the Afghan Nation Army (ANA) and Nato forces operating alongside the country’s troubled north-west border region have become increasingly hostile towards Pakistan.
In its annual report, the Conflict Monitoring Centre, which scrutinises anti-state violence and the security situation in conflict zones, revealed that 745 cross-border attacks took place from the Afghan side during the year 2012, out of which 371 attacks were carried out either by the ANA or Nato and US forces, while the rest of them were carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and al Qaeda militants hiding in safe havens inside Afghanistan.
The report shows that the situation along the Pak-Afghan border remained tense during the year and despite Pakistan’s reaction to the Salala incident, hostilities from across the border continued unabated.
It says that the deteriorating security situation in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) is a result of tacit support for anti-Pakistan militants provided by the forces active across the border, which include Afghan National Army as well as Nato.
The report further states that border areas along Pakistan, of at least four Afghan provinces, have become launching pads for anti-Pakistan militants of TTP.
Maulvi Fazlullah of TTP Swat chapter is roaming freely in Kunar province, organising his cadres to target Chitral and Dir districts of KP and Bajour Agency of Fata. Militants in South and North Waziristan, Orakazai Agency and Khyber Agency have established their bases in border areas of Nangarhar, Paktia and Paktika provinces. Despite Pakistan’s recent efforts to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiation table, armed forces across the border are increasingly becoming hostile to Pakistani interests.
Conflict Monitoring Centre’s data shows that during 2012, Nato and US warplanes and helicopters violated Pakistani airspace some 53 times, and in some cases they bombed as well.
The airspace violation took place six times in January, four times in February, eight times in March, four times in April, nine times in May, six times in June, one time in July, three times in August, five times in September, six times in October and one time in November.
All but one of these violations took place along the Fata border, and one took place in Balochistan.
The year 2012 also witnessed an unprecedented increase in cross-border rocket and mortar attacks by the ANA.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 2nd, 2013.
COMMENTS (11)
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@Joystick: all borders are man made and to the wish of the local people, pakistan pashtuns dont want to be part of poor drug ridden afghanistan. Just as the German in Swizterzland didnt want to join Germany .
People die for borders through out history, look at europe all the border are the result of treaties signed in the past 50 years,
stop living in the past, by your logic Italy should claim all of europe as part of the roman empire
Tell us who isn't hostile to Pakistan! Could it be all a part of your Karma catching up with you?
@Barekzai: Why don't the tens of millions of Afghan refugees staying in Pakistan for the last 30 years go back to Afghanistan. They are criminal elements and thankless critters. Afghans have always been slaves of India, especially Bollywood. Afghans can't stop fighting with each other and we always pay the price for the mess they create. Once the Americans leave the Afghan's will start fighting with each other again and Pakistan will get more refugees
Totally biased article. Their practicle hostility is negligible to the hostility of Pakistani establishment towards Afghanistan. We know that even whole world know that. By destroying others, we can't save ourselves.
@Sterry: You're not Pashtun, Punjabi claiming Pashtun. No Afghan(Pashtun) accepts that shitty border...good luck fencing the mountains and villages that our great grandfathers died for 300 years ago, while you're brainwashed with 60 year old history of a slave Al Jinah. You can't split blood by border, especially a border that has no meaning.
@pashtun: As a Pashtun myself, I can tell you that Afghanis are amongst the most thankless nation in the earth and I'm not just talking about the Farsiwan! Considering all the support that Pakistan has given these people in their fight against the Soviets and the sacrifices Pakistan made in defeating the Soviets, you wold think that the Afghanis would have left their Indian masters. Instead most Afghanis, including the refugees I see in Peshawar remain pro Indian puppets who are responsible for the crime and criminality in Pakistan. The only logic that Afghanis understand is to seal the border, send all of their refugees currently residing in Pakistan back to Kabul and let them beg their Indian masters for the goods they get from Pakistan.
roaming freely in kunar??? where are our intelligence agencies and commandoes? just do it like good old days
Hostile to Pakistan?! I wonder why...
Pakistanis and their lies are at least persistant, I'll give them that...what if it turns out that the TTP has always been a Pakistani False-Flag Operation against its own people? After all, have ongoing reports of TTP brutality not driven the ordinary people into the arms of the military again?
Good. They should take back all the criminal Refugees and give us a break.