Pakistan-based terror groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Taliban, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and the al-Qaeda target India’s interests and goals in Afghanistan, and pursue other objectives such as creating sanctuaries and safe havens for terrorists in tribal areas between Kabul and Islamabad, the Afghan envoy to the United Nations (UN) has said.
“In Afghanistan, regional terrorist groups have cooperated with the Taliban based on their common goals and mutual interests. These groups include Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad, al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Islam… These groups pose a strategic threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan,” Permanent Afghan Representative Mahmoud Saikal said here on Friday during the open briefing of the Counter-Terrorism Committee on foreign terrorists.
These terror groups, he said, “pursue a few objectives” in Afghanistan, the main among them being “revival of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, targeting India’s interests and goals in Afghanistan” and forming “strategic alliances with international terrorist networks in the region and world.” These groups also seek withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, creating bases and safe havens and using them as a platform for “undermining and toppling” Central Asian “secular” governments, Mr. Saikal said.
They also pursue the objective of creating “sanctuaries and safe havens” in tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan and along the Durand Line, the 2,430-km-long international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. — PTI
