Karzai asked to break silence on cross-border raids

KABUL and order a tit-for-tat response.

Sher told a press conference in Kabul that Karzai had been silent because he believed innocent people across the border would die if they resorted to retaliation.

“I ask Karzai to say explicitly whether he loves Pakistanis or the Afghans who catapulted him into power and made him the president of their country,” the politician said.

He added Afghanistan should not be afraid of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and should respond to the aggression with wooden sticks if they had no weapons. “But the attacks should not go unchecked,” he insisted.

Sher criticised the lower house for voting to dismiss defence and interior ministers. He claimed the two top security ministers had repeatedly said they were ready for a response to the Pakistani attacks, but Karzai did not allow them to do so.

He said the US should not keep silent on the incursions because the Americans had to defend Afghanistan under the strategic cooperation agreement. Under the accord, he said, if a country attacked Afghanistan, the US and Kabul would jointly respond.

Sher suggested to the government to drag Islamabad to the United Nations Security Council over the continued cross-border shelling.

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