Army bins ‘baseless, mischievous’ Afghan accusations

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Army has strongly rejected allegations that the Pakistani security officials were involved in last week’s temporary takeover by the Taliban insurgents of the strategically located northern Afghan city of Kunduz.

“The allegations levelled by an Afghan official are totally unfounded, baseless, uncalled for and mischievous,” said a spokesperson of the army’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), in a statement on Tuesday.

The spokesperson responded to the report that appeared in a section of the Afghan press, regarding the alleged hand of Pakistani security officials in the fall of Kunduz on September 28.

He said Pakistan had already supported an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process and condemned the Kunduz attack and, therefore, levelling such an allegation was not even ‘comprehensible.’ “Such accusations are not a responsible behaviour and need not be repeated in the better interest of addressing the actual threat.”

The allegation is the latest in a series of statements issued by the Afghan leadership, accusing Pakistan of backing the insurgency in the war-torn country.

Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry recently condemned the Taliban’s takeover of Kunduz, calling it an illegal move.  His statement was aimed at dispelling the impression that Pakistan was in any way supporting the Afghan Taliban. “Afghanistan is run by a democratically elected and legitimate government and occupation of its territory by any group is unacceptable,” he had said in New York last week at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.

In recent months, Pakistan has publicly condemned the Afghan Taliban for carrying out violent attacks. At the same time, it has also called for the revival of a fledgling peace process between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban that was called off after announcement of longtime Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death in the last week of July.

During his recent visit to the UK, army chief General Raheel Sharif had said that the Afghan reconciliation process was the only way forward and also urged all the stakeholders to revive the peace process.

Islamabad has also warned that the ultraorthodox Middle Eastern terrorist group, Islamic State or Da’ish, may establish its foothold in Afghanistan in the absence of a political solution to the current conflict. However, given the current resurge of the Taliban, the possibility of resumption of peace talks appears remote in the foreseeable future.


Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2015.