Blame game: Kabul accuses Islamabad of rocket blitz

Shuja Malek Jalala says 17 rockets have been fired during the past month.

ISLAMABAD:

A day after the Afghan president’s top security adviser described Pakistan as the ‘main obstacle’ in Kabul’s peace initiatives with the Taliban, Hamid Karzai accused Islamabad of firing rockets into his country.

Karzai warned that “Pakistan’s rocket attacks” into Afghanistan will have a negative impact on the bilateral relationship, Afghan state media reported on Saturday.

His remarks came some 24 hours after Kunar Governor Shuja Malek Jalala claimed that a rocket from Pakistan hit a house in Marwari district on Friday, killing three people while wounding another five. He did not say who had fired the rocket. Jalala also alleged that 17 rocket attacks had been carried out during the past month. He however, said no one had been hurt.

“President Karzai strongly condemned Pakistan’s rocket attack on Marwari district of Kunar province,” Afghan state Bakhtar news agency reported.

Pakistan and Afghanistan routinely accuse each other of cross-border shelling --one of the main irritants in relations between the two neighbours.



As tensions grow, Karzai’s security adviser, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, accused Pakistan of becoming an ‘obstruction’ in the peace process in Afghanistan.

Criticising Sartaj Aziz’s statements about the Taliban agreeing to talks after the presidential elections in April, he advised that US should choose one strategic partner.

“Postponing peace talks after the elections shows once again that Pakistan wants to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, same as the past three decades and 12 years, as they have continued their policy of sending suicide bombers and disrupting peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Afghan media quoted Spanta as saying in Kabul. Pakistan on Friday angrily rejected Spanta’s remarks in a statement.

“Dr Spanta’s reported comments are both regrettable and out of sync with the constructive spirit in which the leaders of the two countries are engaged to build a positive Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2014.