Islamabad lodges protest with Kabul over Dir attack

KABUL’s remote upper Dir district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The overnight attack involved a group of about 70 militants who attacked a border post on Tuesday night. The troops returned fire, killing six attackers and wounding nine others, officials said. They said the rest fled back to Afghanistan.

Islamabad urged Kabul to take steps to eliminate “terrorist sanctuaries” on Afghan soil, a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad said.

It said a “strong protest” was lodged over the attack with an Afghan diplomat in Islamabad and that Afghan authorities were urged “to take effective steps to stop the use of Afghan territory for repeated cross border fire and physical attacks by terrorists”.

It added that Pakistan urged Kabul to take measures “to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries on Afghan territory.”

It was a telling reversal for Pakistan, which for years has been accused by both Afghanistan and the United States of harboring insurgents that carry out such attacks from its side of the border.

Many militants are thought to have fled across the frontier after the Pakistani military on June 15 launched a major operation against insurgent safe havens in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan.

Since then, the military said it has killed 570 militants and lost 34 soldiers. Authorities say over 800,000 people have also fled North Waziristan.

PAN Monitor/ma

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