After US exit, Pakistan frets over Afghanistan security threats from jihadist violence

Name: US military intercepts rockets targeting Kabul airport
Uploaded: 2021-09-01T06:08:20.000Z
Duration: 1 min 22 s
Description: US military intercepts rockets targeting Kabul airport

Islamabad is particularly worried about lethal attacks from a separate, Pakistani Taliban group being launched from neighbouring Afghanistan

Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in jihadist violence in the last two decades

Reading Time:2 minutes

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People wave Taliban flags and shout slogans during a rally in Chaman, a town at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Reutersin Islamabad

Published: 2:08pm, 1 Sep 2021

There is growing concern among Pakistani officials about security in neighbouring Afghanistan, as the Taliban tries to form a government and stabilise the country following the departure of US and other foreign forces.

Islamabad is particularly worried about militant fighters from a separate, Pakistani Taliban group crossing from Afghanistan and launching lethal attacks on its territory. Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in jihadist violence in the last two decades.

Underlining the security threat within Afghanistan, in the last few days a suicide bombing claimed by an Afghan offshoot of Islamic State outside Kabul airport killed more than 100 people, including 13 US troops.

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US military intercepts rockets targeting Kabul airport

A rocket attack on the airport followed, and on Sunday militant gunfire from across the border in Afghanistan killed two Pakistani soldiers.

“The next two to three months are critical,” a senior Pakistani official said, adding that Islamabad feared a rise in militant attacks along the Afghan-Pakistan border, as the Taliban tried to fill a vacuum left by the collapse of Afghan forces and the Western-backed administration.

“We [the international community] have to assist the Taliban in reorganising their army in order for them to control their territory,” the source added, referring to the threat posed by resurgent rival militant groups including Isis.

US officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of supporting the Afghan Taliban, which fought in a civil war in the mid-1990s before seizing power in 1996.