AhlulBayt (AS) International News Agency – ABNA: Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement on Sunday that Islamabad “categorically rejects” allegations that Pakistani security forces or intelligence agencies had interfered in internal fighting in Nuristan or elsewhere in Afghanistan.
The ministry also rejected claims that Pakistan had recruited or trained former Afghan security personnel or facilitated the activities of Islamic State and other militant groups operating inside Afghanistan.
“Not even a single piece of evidence” had been presented to substantiate the allegations, the ministry said. It also dismissed a video circulated in support of the Taliban’s claims, saying it showed several unarmed individuals without appropriate military equipment and appeared to have been staged.
Pakistan’s ministry said the presence and activities of militant groups inside Afghanistan had been documented in successive reports by the United Nations and other international organisations. It accused the Taliban authorities of deflecting attention from domestic problems by blaming Pakistan for insecurity.
The statement came after Afghanistan’s Taliban-run Defence Ministry alleged that several groups of Islamic State militants and other opponents had entered Nuristan from across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with the support of Pakistani military personnel.
The Taliban authorities also alleged that many of those involved were former members of Afghanistan’s security forces who had been recruited and trained by Pakistan’s intelligence service before being sent into Afghanistan to carry out attacks and create instability.
Pakistan has rejected those allegations.
The latest exchange comes amid continuing tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban authorities over militant activity along the two countries’ long and largely mountainous border. Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of allowing armed groups to operate from their territory, allegations that have further strained relations between the neighbouring countries.
The competing claims over the Nuristan fighting could not be independently verified from the information available in the reports cited.
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