Afghan commander orders attacks on insurgents in Pakistan

[Valin]

Stars and Stripes:

Carlo Munoz

December 22, 2014

 

KABUL, Afghanistan — The police chief in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar has ordered his forces to attack Pakistani-based Tehrik-i-Taliban insurgents inside Pakistan, adding fuel to rising tensions along the countries’ shared border.

 

Police Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq issued the order Friday, informing senior officials at the ministries of Interior and Foreign Affairs in Kabul of his plans, Kandahar police spokesman Ahmad Zia Durrani said Monday. The move will be a “kick in the teeth” to Taliban and other insurgent groups based in Pakistan looking to strike inside Afghanistan, Durrani added.

 

Government officials in Kabul did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Raziq’s move came as Islamabad and Kabul are set to discuss coordinated military actions against the terrorists’ hideouts along the porous, mountainous border between the two nations.

 

Last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawas Sharif threatened to send Pakistani troops into Afghan territory to kill or capture terrorist leaders responsible for the bloody attack Dec. 16 on a Pakistani military school. The massacre at the Army Public School and College in Peshawar, in which 149 people perished, was the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history.

 

(Snip)