Kabul should act against terrorists or we will: Bilawal

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Tuesday that if the Afghan interim government failed to take action, Pakistan had an option under international law to act in “self-defence” against the militants hiding inside Afghanistan.

While speaking to the media, he, however, made it clear that this should not be the first option for his government.

The foreign minister on Tuesday reminded Kabul of the Doha Accord. According to the Doha Accord, the Taliban had assured in writing that militant groups would not be allowed inside Afghanistan and nor would any militant group attack another country from inside Afghanistan.

The foreign minister’s statement comes in the aftermath of a bloodbath in Bajaur when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a political rally of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl in which to-date 54 people have been killed while 200 wounded with some in serious condition still in hospitals.

On Monday, the ISIS armed group based in Afghanistan claimed responsibility for the gruesome attack. In the past, it has been the TTP that has carried out attacks against Pakistan from inside Afghanistan.

The Pakistani leadership, including the prime minister and chief of the army staff, expressed their impatience with Kabul over its inability to stop the attacks against Pakistan. “Regarding Pakistan going there [inside Afghanistan] and taking action against these terrorists, we do not want to be forced to do this, but according to international law, we have the right to self-defence,” said the foreign minister.

Commenting on the continued militant attacks on Pakistan by the banned TTP and other terrorist groups, Bilawal said it was time for the interim Afghan government to act against these terrorists. “If we are repeatedly attacked like this, and there is no appropriate response, we will be forced to do this. But I don’t think it should be amongst the first options for us,” he added.

The FM said Kabul’s Taliban government needed to act against Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and other militant groups that were targeting Pakistan. “If they [Afghan government] need any help, then I think Pakistan should be prepared to help them. Our preference will be that we want the officials there, the interim government, to act against them,” he added.

Bilawal also pointed out the fact that there had been a quantitative increase in terror attacks on Pakistan since the time the Afghan Taliban took over in Kabul.

“Statistics show that if you look at our data 500 days before the fall of Kabul, and then compare it with our data 500 days later, you can see that there has been a clear increase,” he said, adding that weapons left in Afghanistan by the US and Nato forces had fallen into the hands of militants.

Earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, after a visit to Kabul as the head of a powerful delegation, had clearly warned the Afghan interim government that Pakistan would strike terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan if they are unable to rein in the anti-Pakistan militants. “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,” Asif had told The Voice of America.

Meanwhile, earlier in January this year, Minister Bilawal said that Pakistan has no intention of launching a cross-border operation in Afghanistan. “We’re not interested in launching a cross-border operation, nor would we want to advocate for more military intervention after what we’ve already seen was the longest war,” Bilawal told Anadolu Agency on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.