The Kabul Tribune (KT) — Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Monday it summoned the Taliban’s charge d’affaires in Islamabad to protest last week’s militant attack in Karachi, alleging that Afghan nationals were involved and accusing Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities of allowing their territory to be used for attacks inside Pakistan.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Pakistan delivered a “strong demarche” to the Taliban diplomat over the Karachi attack. Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Ubaid-ur-Rehman Nizamani, also conveyed the protest to the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry in Kabul, he said.
The ministry said the diplomatic protests were prompted by evidence that Afghan nationals participated in the Karachi attack, including one suspect who was captured alive.
“The fact that Afghan nationals, including one apprehended alive, participated in this attack proves yet again that Afghan soil and Afghan nationals continue to be used to orchestrate terrorist attacks inside Pakistan,” the ministry said in a statement.
The protest came hours after the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires in Kabul to protest Pakistani airstrikes in the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar, Paktia and Paktika.
The Taliban said the strikes killed 36 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 163 others. Pakistan said the operation targeted militants and killed 25 members of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Taliban administration of allowing TTP fighters to operate from Afghan territory, an allegation the Taliban have consistently denied.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have deteriorated in recent years amid escalating cross-border militancy, disputes along the shared frontier and mutual accusations of harboring armed groups.
The latest diplomatic exchange follows Pakistan’s second cross-border airstrikes inside Afghanistan this month. The United Nations has said 13 civilians were killed in those strikes.
