Pakistan pressures Afghans after blast

Border crossings into Afghanistan closed after ISIL attack killed 88 in shrine, as Islamabad orders handover of terrorists

ISLAMABAD // Pakistan has closed two major border crossings into Afghanistan, blocking trade supplies, as it seeks to increase pressure on Kabul after an ISIL suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine killed 88 people.

The border crossing at Torkham was shut hours after the attack on the Lal Shahbaz Qalander shrine in Sindh province on Thursday, and the Chaman border was shut late on Friday, a senior army official said.

The border closures halt trade supplies to Pakistan’s landlocked neighbour and increases tensions between the two countries, who accuse each other of harbouring militant groups.

Another official said lorries and shipping containers carrying trade supplies were parked miles away from the crossings.

Torkham connects Pakistan to Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and Chaman is near Spin Boldak in Kandahar. The bombing at the beloved Lal Shahbaz Qalander in Sehwan triggered nationwide operations by Pakistani security forces, which they said killed more than 100 terrorists.

Pakistani troops backed by artillery targeted camps belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, near the Afghan border, causing an unspecified number of militant casualties.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed to have carried out attacks that include a suicide bombing in Lahore on Monday that killed seven police officers and six civilians.

Pakistan says Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group have been operating from Afghanistan near the Pakistani border and that Kabul had ignored Islamabad’s pleas to take action against them.

Pakistan’s military said it handed over to Afghan diplomats a list of 76 suspected “terrorists” who were hiding in Afghanistan on Friday. Pakistan wants immediate action by Afghan authorities, including the suspects’ extradition to Islamabad.

The Afghan army chief of staff Gen Qadam Shah Shahim said yesterday that they had given similar lists to Pakistan in the past and hoped the country would act against them.

Afghan forces had killed 1,955 ISIL fighters over the past year, Gen Shahim said in Kabul. He said Afghan diplomats had conveyed Kabul’s concerns about Pakistani artillery fire into eastern Afghanistan. The Afghan government has summoned Pakistan’s ambassador in protest.

“We are waiting for the response through the diplomatic channels, otherwise we are fully ready to defend our country,” Gen Shahim said.

Afghan deputy foreign minister Hekmat Karzai said Kabul wanted action from Islamabad against terrorists hiding in Pakistan.

Mr Karzai said he was concerned about the closure of the Torkham and Chaman border crossings and asked that they be reopened.

Apart from disrupting trade, the border closures may also delay the United Nations refugee agency’s repatriation of Afghan refugees who have been living in Pakistan since the 1980s after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.