Pakistan-Afghanistan relations deteriorate, Taliban increases vigil around Pak mission in Kabul

Kabul: Ties between Pakistan and the Taliban seem to be facing a new blow as several reports revealed that the Taliban has increased the vigil around the offices of Pakistan mission in the country to ensure the neutralization of any attempt of sabotaging the regime politically and diplomatically, media reports said. Furthermore, there were several reports of Afghan security officials curtailing the movement of suspicious persons around Pakistan`s embassy in Kabul and the consulate in Jalalabad, reported Afghan Diaspora.

Taliban is increasingly becoming more determined to counter Islamabad`s policy of violence against it. Tribals living on both sides of the Durand Line are being targeted by the Pakistan Army.

There has been increased violence against the innocent Pashtuns living in bordering areas. In a recent attack on October 2022, the Pakistan Army resorted to mortar firing across the border. It all started with a movement by some local Afghans from villages near the border to the Pakistan side.

The Afghan side registered their protest that these movements are within the ambit of a bilateral agreement. The ongoing fencing between the two countries has major consequences for closely knit Pashtun and Balochi tribal communities on both sides of the fencing, reported Afghan Diaspora.

The work on the fence started in 2016 and continued unchallenged till the Taliban recaptured power in August 2021. The border divides the traditional Pashtun areas between the two countries infringing the natural rights of locals. Even the Taliban`s stance towards Pakistan has been pretty shaky.

 Afghanistan`s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai has strongly condemned Pakistan`s Prime Minister`s anti-Taliban statement at 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

It came after Pakistan had listed Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) as one of the major threats to the security of the region, reported Afghan Diaspora. The Taliban leader has expressed concerns over Pakistan`s attempts to portray Afghanistan as a sponsor of terrorism and said that this will not be tolerated. 

Earlier, a woman was killed by Pakistani border forces on the Afghan side amid recent clashes with the Taliban forces in Afghanistan. The clash took place along the border in the Spin Boldak border town in Kandahar province of southern Afghanistan, Khaama Press reported.

In a statement, the Taliban chief of police for the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar, Mawlawi Mahmood, said that the border clash was started by Pakistani forces, adding that gunfire from the Pakistani side killed a woman from the Afghan side. The border clashes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border come at a time when the Taliban forces and Pakistani border security forces have clashed multiple times before.

Clashes between Pakistan security forces and the Afghan Taliban have become quite frequent in recent months. Several cases of open firings and bomb attacks have been reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan and also continue to blame the neighbouring country for transmitting terrorism across the border.

The porous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been a stronghold for the Pakistani Taliban, a banned terrorist group in Pakistan, for decades.