KABUL: The Pakistani prime minister’s accusations of Afghan involvement in cross-border attacks are likely to further strain relations between the two neighbors, experts say, after 19 soldiers were killed in clashes in Pakistan’s northwest this week.
Over the past few days, Pakistani security forces have reported several raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on what it said were hideouts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — an outlawed armed group, which is separate from the Afghan Taliban.
After the military said on Saturday the clashes with the militants killed at least 19 soldiers and 45 fighters, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told reporters in Bannu, one of the districts where the attacks took place, that “terrorists come from Afghanistan” and that Pakistan “will have nothing to do” with the Afghan administration if it chooses to support them.
While there has been no immediate reaction from Kabul to the Pakistani prime minister’s statements, they marked “an escalation in hostile rhetoric toward Afghanistan,” Ahmed-Waleed Kakar, analyst and founder of the Afghan Eye podcast, told Arab News.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan has been accusing them of allowing TTP militants to use Afghan territory for cross-border attacks — a claim the Taliban have repeatedly denied.
