Pakistan, Taliban and Afghanistan
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By the end of the meeting, Field Marshal Munir reportedly left his commanders with a grim warning: the army must “regain control and restore strategic depth before it’s too late.”
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Shaken by Taliban attacks on Afghan border, Pakistan Army’s Asim Munir seeks ‘intel’ from generals
In a major setback following coordinated attacks by Afghan Taliban fighters on military posts along the Durand Line, Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, held an emergency meeting at GHQ Rawalpindi and demanded an intelligence report.
A full-blown conflict between Afghanistan’s Taliban and neighboring Pakistan seemed unthinkable when the hard-line Islamist group, a longtime ally of Islamabad, seized power in 2021 as international troops withdrew and the government their supported collapsed.
Pakistan uprooted the Taliban with U.S. help in the 2010s. But the insurgency has resurfaced with assistance from the Afghan Taliban.
The Taliban government accuses Pakistan of bombing Kabul and a market in eastern Afghanistan. A blast occurred Thursday night in Kabul near key government buildings.
Taliban fighters allegedly hung the trousers and rifles of captured Pakistani soldiers in city centres following recent clashes. A purported image has gone viral on social media, showing the pants and weapons of Pakistani soldiers displayed in an Afghan city.
What began as airstrikes by Pakistan on Afghan territory has spiralled into a full-blown military clash, exposing the collapse of Islamabad’s once-vaunted control over the Taliban.
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