Military attack near Afghan border
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani military on Sunday announced the launch of a new military offensive near the Afghan border to stop the unchecked movement of people across the border and the activities of IS militants.
The operation is focussed on the Rajgal valley of Khyber Agency, a semi-autonomous tribal region of Pakistan. The region sits next to Afghan province of Nangarhar, a stronghold of IS militants.
Two days ago a pair of suicide bombers tried storm a military camp in the Khyber Agency but the attack was repelled.
The army had informed Afghan forces ahead of the launch of the operation, said Major General Asif Ghafoor in a press conference.
He denied that the IS had any organised network in Pakistan but said: “However, Daesh is getting stronger in Afghanistan but is still far from making a base the way it did in the Middle East.”
Splinter groups of Tehrik-iTaliban Pakistan (TTP) who tried to join Daesh in Pakistan are already being tackled by the security forces, he said.
Meanwhile, a Saturday morning air strike destroyed a school in Afghanistan’s embattled northern Kunduz province, Afghan officials said.
Three people, including the school’s gatekeeper, were injured in the strike on Khoja Mashhad, a school in the city of Kunduz, at around 4 am, Mahfozullah Akbari, a spokesman for the northern police zone, said.
According to a provincial council member, Sayed Assadullah Sadat, four to five people in neighbouring houses were injured by flying glass shards. However, there were no students present that early in the morning.
It was not clear who was responsible for the attack. Afghan officials such as Mahfozullah Akbari blamed the US for the air strike.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that “invader planes” had bombed a school in Kunduz.
The US forces’ spokesman, William Salvin, in a tweet denied the claims, saying “Taliban allegations of US air strikes on a school in Kunduz province are false.”
He confirmed that US forces had conducted night-time strikes, but that, according to Afghan officials, the damage at the school had been caused by a kitchen fire.
Salvin said the US strikes had been conducted in areas where there were no civilians, but had “destroyed Taliban fighting positions and emplaced IEDs (improvised explosive devices).”
US forces are assisting Afghan ground troops with increasing air support as the troops struggle to fight an intensifying insurgency throughout the country.
The Afghan air force is also launching more strikes against militants, but many units of the force are still in the process of being trained.
The UN, in its 2016 civilian casualties report, stated that the US air force — which was behind the majority of all air strikes in the country — caused 40 per cent of civilian casualties through air strikes.