Pakistan Will Hit Terror Hideouts Inside Afghanistan, Defense Minister Warns Kabul
Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Islamabad March 6, 2014. Pakistan could launch a full-scale military operation against Pakistani Taliban insurgents in the tribal areas near the Afghan border as early as this month, Asif said, warning insurgents against violating a ceasefire. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood (PAKISTAN - Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT MILITARY)
Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, has said that Islamabad has warned the Afghan Taliban it will strike terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan if the de facto rulers in Kabul are unable to rein in anti-Pakistan militants.
In an exclusive interview with Voice of America, Asif said in his late-February visit to Afghanistan that he reminded Taliban leaders to live up to their cross-border security commitments forbidding terrorists from using Afghan soil to plan and conduct attacks on Pakistan or Islamabad will take action.
“If that is not done, at some point we’ll have to … resort to some measures, which will definitely — wherever [terrorists] are, their sanctuaries on Afghan soil — we’ll have to hit them,” he said. “We’ll have to hit them because we cannot tolerate this situation for long.”
Since the Afghan Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Kabul, Pakistan has seen a resurgence in terror attacks led by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the TTP, an ideological offshoot and ally of the Afghan Taliban.
