The Foreign Office (FO) confirmed that Pakistan carried out “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations” inside the border regions of Afghanistan, hours after Kabul said airstrikes conducted on its soil had killed eight people.
A press release from the FO said the prime targets of the operation conducted in the morning earlier today were terrorists belonging to the Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group, adding that the outfit, along with the banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, resulting in “deaths of hundreds of civilians and law enforcement officials”.
The FO added that the latest attack of such an instance took place on Saturday at a security post in Mir Ali in North Waziristan which claimed the lives of seven Pakistani soldiers.The strikes come a day after President Asif Ali Zardari vowed retaliation following the martyrdom of the seven soldiers, including two officers, in the Saturday attack.
Offering the funeral prayers of the two officers, he had asserted that the blood of the martyrs would not go in vain and the country would avenge them. The president said Pakistan would not hesitate to strike back if attacked by anyone at borders or inside its territory.
The Hafiz Gul Bahadar group had claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in North Waziristan. Security officials say that fighters of the Gul Bahadar group operate from the Afghan side of the border, mostly from Khost.
The strikes come amid growing contact between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban rulers in recent days.Pakistan’s charge d’affaires in Kabul travelled to Kandahar last week to meet Mullah Shirin Akhund, the Taliban governor for southern Kandahar who is one of the close confidants of the Taliban chief.
The FO statement said that over the years, “Pakistan has repeatedly conveyed its serious concerns to the interim Afghan government over the presence of terror outfits, including TTP, inside Afghanistan. These terrorists pose a grave threat to Pakistan’s security and have consistently used Afghan territory to launch terror attacks inside Pakistani territory.”
The FO said Pakistan accorded “prime importance” to Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and therefore, always prioritised dialogue and cooperation to confront the terrorist threat.
“We have repeatedly urged the Afghan authorities to take concrete and effective action to ensure that the Afghan soil is not used as a staging ground for terrorism against Pakistan. We have also called on them to deny safe havens to TTP and to hand over its leadership to Pakistan.
