KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan’s Taliban chief has warned the members of the group against carrying out attacks abroad, the defense minister said, days after Pakistan said Afghans were involved in a spate of suicide attacks there.
Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid said in a speech to members of Afghanistan’s security forces, broadcast by state television, that fighting outside Afghanistan is not sanctioned, which had been barred by Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada.
If anyone goes outside of Afghanistan for the goal of war, it won’t be religiously sanctioned, Akhundzada said, according to Mujahid.
“If the emir prevents the mujahideen (fighters) from going to battle and they still do it”, this is war, not allowed, he added.
The remarks come after Islamabad said militants behind a spate of suicide attacks in Pakistan were being helped by “Afghan citizens” across the border, days after a deadly bombing claimed by the Daesh group near the countries’ shared frontier.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif stopped short of accusing Afghanistan’s Taliban government of knowingly allowing attacks from its soil, but he did say Pakistan militants were operating from “sanctuaries” in the neighboring country.
Since the Taliban surged back to power in Afghanistan two years ago, Pakistan has witnessed a dramatic uptick in militant attacks focused on its western border regions, claimed by both Afghan Taliban ally Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and rival Daesh.
Formed in 2007 by Pakistani militants who splintered off from the Afghan Taliban to focus their fight on Islamabad for supporting America’s invasion of Afghanistan, the TTP has since waged a bloody campaign of bombings and other attacks across Pakistan.
Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities insist they do not allow the country’s soil to be used by armed groups plotting against other nations.