ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on Sunday said that around 80% people carrying out terrorism in the country’s “mosques, schools, and markets,” and those attacking the military were Afghans.
Pakistan has repeatedly said terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan pose a security threat to the country and has called on Kabul to prevent its territory from being used for attacks. Foreign Office spokesperson Ambassador Sajjad Haider Khan said earlier this month that Pakistan considers support and abetment by elements in Afghanistan, including the Taliban regime, to be an external dimension of the terrorism challenge facing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
In a post on X, the defense minister said that Islamabad “sheltered Afghans for five decades and made them partners” in the country’s “limited resources.”
“After the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces left, we expressed goodwill and hoped that our borders would remain secure,” Asif said, adding that Pakistan made efforts so the “neighbors would live in peace.”
“But those carrying out terrorism in our mosques, schools, and markets—those attacking our army—are 70/80% Afghan,” the defense minister said.
He said that the Afghanistan was showing “solidarity with our eternal and arch-enemy, India,” stating that the Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership was in “direct and indirect contacts” with Kabul, however, there was no “reduction in the hatred and enmity” from the Afghan side.