A US pullback of troops from northeast Afghanistan over 20 months has let Islamic guerrillas establish bases in the area and carry out unusually large attacks on Pakistan in recent weeks, the Pakistan Army said.
Several Pakistani Taliban groups moved fighters into Nuristan and Kunar and used those Afghan provinces five times in the past month to send forces numbering in the hundreds to attack Pakistani border posts or police stations, said military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said in an interview at GHQ.
“In the past we never had this kind of experience, where 200 to 300 militants attacked us,” Abbas said. “It’s a big body in this mountainous terrain” and shows that the militants have established bases in northeastern Afghanistan that can house, feed and transport such groups, he said. The US government contends that Pakistan has failed to eliminate similar safe areas for the g7uerrillas in its border districts, especially North Waziristan. The complaints on both sides underscore the need and the difficulty for Pakistan and Afghanistan to maintain control all the way to the isolated, mountainous border between them, Abbas said.
Pakistani officials say the US pullback from northeastern Afghanistan since late 2009 has given the Taliban an escape route from the Pakistan army’s offensives to clear the militants from two adjacent Pakistani districts, Bajaur and Mohmand.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters crossed the border from Kunar on mountain ridges as high as 3,700 meters (12,000 feet) to attack police stations in Pakistan’s Dir Valley on April 22 and on June 1, Abbas said. About 300 fighters crossed into Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal district last month and seized two border posts, killing 15 Pakistani security officers, he said.
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