Afghanistan supports India’s strikes in “self-defence” to neutralise terrorists inside Pakistan, Kabul’s envoy Shaida M. Abdali said on Friday.
Addressing the media a day after the Army carried out “surgical strikes” targeting “launch pads for terrorists,” he argued for taking the war on terror to the “safe sanctuaries” of terror across the border.
“Terrorism will threaten us all if we do not combat it. Therefore we feel that the time has come for tough action against terrorists. There will be risk and cost involved in such measures but we have to undertake them because the time has come for us to combat this force. If terror groups continue violence, then the actions taken [by India] will continue,” Mr. Abdali said in support of the Indian Army’s actions that killed a number of terrorists.
The Afghan envoy was one of the 22 diplomats who were briefed by India on Thursday regarding the strikes and said that the Indian actions prove Pakistan’s complicity in terror attacks that target neighbouring States. He said that terrorism from Pakistan was also hurting communities inside Pakistan.
“We have fought terrorism and will fight it now for the Baloch and the Pashtuns of Pakistan,” he said and added, “there is no doubt that state sponsorship of terrorism exists in Pakistan and the war of terror therefore can not be fought in Afghanistan but at its roots where it originates and finds sanctuaries.”
Mr. Abdali highlighted his country’s commitment to free Afghanistan of terrorism and said that the world has no little patience for the rhetoric that distinguishes between good and bad terrorists.
