Pak asks Taliban chief to rein in terrorists after mosque attack: Report

Islamabad:

Islamabad will ask the secretive supreme leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban to rein in terrorists in Pakistan after a suicide bombing at a mosque killed hundreds of police, officials said on Saturday.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, Pakistan has seen a dramatic increase in attacks in areas bordering Afghanistan, with terrorists using the rugged terrain to launch attacks and avoid detection.

Detectives have blamed an affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban for Monday’s blast in Peshawar – the most notorious terrorist organization in the region – that killed 84 people inside a fortified police headquarters.

The Pakistani Taliban shares similar lineage and ideals with the Afghan Taliban, led by Hibatullah Akhundzada, who issues orders from his base in the southern city of Kandahar.

Faisal Karim Kundi, special assistant to Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, said delegations would be sent to Tehran and Kabul to “ask them to ensure that their soil is not used by terrorists against Pakistan”.

A senior Pakistani police officer in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Monday’s explosion occurred told AFP that the Kabul delegation would hold “talks with top officials”.

“When we say top leadership, it means … Afghan Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Afghan officials did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

But on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki warned that Pakistan “should not blame others”.

“He should look into the problems at home,” he said. “Afghanistan should not be blamed.”

During the 20-year US-led intervention in Afghanistan, Islamabad was accused of providing covert support to the Afghan Taliban while the country proclaimed a military alliance with the United States.

But since the ultra-conservatives captured Kabul in 2021, relations with Pakistan have soured, partly due to the resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Also known.

The TTP – formed in 2007 by Pakistani militants who broke away from the Afghan Taliban – once dominated swaths of north-west Pakistan, but was ousted by an army offensive after 2014.

According to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, in the first year of Taliban rule, Pakistan saw a 50 percent increase in terror attacks concentrated in border areas with Afghanistan and Iran.

A United Nations Security Council report in May 2022 stated that the TTP, infamous for the shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, “has arguably benefited most of all foreign extremist groups in Afghanistan from the Taliban takeover.”

Last year, Kabul mediated peace talks between Islamabad and the TTP, but the shaky ceasefire broke down.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)