The Taliban have warned that they would respond to any attempt by Pakistan to carry out operations on Afghan territory, amid warnings from Islamabad over a spike in attacks by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban.
«No country has the right to attack the territory of another nation. No legislation in the world allows such violations,» said the group’s spokesman and Afghan deputy information minister, Zabihullah Mujahid, according to the Afghan news agency Jaama Press.
«Anyone who has concerns should share them with the Islamic Emirate, as it has sufficient forces and can take action,» he said, a line also echoed by Afghan Defense Minister Mullah Mohamad Yaqub.
Thus, he said that the latest statements by the Pakistani Interior Minister, Rana Sanaullah, on possible anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan are «unfounded» and «inflammatory», while calling for the differences to be resolved through negotiation.
Sanaullah recently asserted that Pakistan could act against the TTP armed group in the neighboring country if the Taliban fail to act. «If there are problems, we will ask Afghanistan, our brotherly Islamic country, to remove the hideouts and hand over these people, but if it does not happen, it is possible (to launch cross-border operations),» he said.
Pakistani officials have been critical in recent weeks of the Taliban following a surge in TTP attacks after breaking a truce agreed in November amid contacts with Islamabad, a process that was brokered by Afghan fundamentalists.
Pakistan’s National Counter-Terrorism Authority said last week that the TTP group expanded its networks during peace talks with the government and added that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan allowed it to increase its activities in the neighboring country, nearly two weeks after the armed group announced the end of the ceasefire.
The TTP group, which differs from the Afghan Taliban in organizational matters but follows the same rigorist interpretation of Sunni Islam, brings together more than a dozen Islamist militant groups operating in Pakistan, where they have killed some 70,000 people in two decades of violence.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
