As the US military is gearing up to increase pressures on Taliban through military offensives as part of the new US strategy, the Pakistani officials have reportedly warned Washington regarding the negative consequences in the event the military operation does not yield any positive result.
According to reports, Islamabad has told US interlocutors that a major military offensive against the Taliban from both sides of the Afghan border, if ending in failure, will have negative consequences for the entire region.
According to Pakistan’s Dawn News, citing diplomatic sources, the key element in the new US strategy for Afghanistan is to launch a two-pronged military offensive that inflicts a military defeat on the Taliban and forces them to join the Afghan reconciliation process on Kabul’s conditions.
This comes as the foreign minister of Pakistan Khwajah Asif has told the Wall Street Journal that Islamabad would not allow the Afghan war to be fought on Pakistan’s soil.
“We have relative calm in Pakistan at the moment,” Asif said. “But if we go against these people [Afghan insurgents], then the war will again be fought on our soil, which will suit the Americans,” he added.
In the meantime, pressures are on the rise on Islamabad to act against the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani network, and other terrorists having safe havens in Pakistan.
The US President Donald Trump last week criticized Pakistan in strong words for harboring the terrorist groups despite receiving billions in aid to support the counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.
“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” Trump said in a Twitter post on Monday.
A senior US State Department official said last week that “We believe that there is significant evidence that leadership of the Haqqani Network resides inside Pakistan and is able to plan and execute from Pakistan attacks inside Afghanistan. So the disagreement is much more about those facts than it is on our overarching goals in the strategy. And we need them to address these sanctuaries in order for us to be able to be enabled to succeed in Afghanistan.”
Source Khaama Press
