Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani officials said on Saturday that Islamabad was planning to approach a secretive supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban in a bid to seek his assistance to rein in militants in Pakistan after the last week’s suicide bombing in a Peshawar mosque left scores of people including policemen martyred.
According to the AFP, since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, Pakistan has seen an uptick in attacks in regions bordering Afghanistan, where the militants use rugged terrain to stage assaults and escape detection.
Detectives have blamed the affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban for the Monday blast in Peshawar that left 84 citizens martyred inside the fortified police headquarters in Peshawar.
The banned Pakistani Taliban have shared their common lineage and ideals with Afghan Taliban, led by Hibatullah Akhundzada, who issues edicts from Kandahar.
Pakistan to Approach Afghan Taliban
Faisal Karim Kundi, Special Assistant to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said that delegations would be sent to Kabul and Tehran to “ask them to ensure that terrorists have not used their soil against Pakistan”.
A Pakistani police official in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Monday blast took place, told the AFP that the delegation would hold “talks with the top brass in Afghanistan.”
“When we say top brass, it means that Afghan Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada,” he said on condition of anonymity.
TheAfghan leader didn’t respond to AFP’s request for the comment.
On Wednesday, Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghan Foreign Minister, said Pakistan should “not pass the blame to others.”
“They should see the issues in their own home and not blame Afghanistan.”
Since the ultra-conservatives seized Afghanistan in 2021, their ties with Pakistan have soured partly over a resurgence of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
According to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, over the first year of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistan witnessed a 50 per cent surge in attacks.
Last year, Kabul brokered peace talks between Islamabad and the banned TTP but the shaky truce collapsed.
