Pakistani authorities shut down a second key border crossing into Afghanistan, halting trade supplies to the neighbouring landlocked country and increasing tensions between the two nations in the wake of a bloody suicide bombing at a beloved shrine in Pakistan, officials said Saturday.
The border closure at Chaman in southwest Balochistan province came after an attack on a Sufi shrine in southern Pakistan on Thursday left 88 worshippers dead. The move was seen as an effort to pressure Kabul to take action against militants who Pakistan says have sanctuaries in Afghanistan.
Responsibility for the attack at Lal Shahbaz Qalander shrine in Sehwan was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Pakistan security forces have launched nationwide operations that they say have left more than 100 “terrorists” dead.
Pakistan closed the border at Torkham hours after the bombing and the Chaman border was shut late on Friday, said a senior Army official.
A second official confirmed the details, saying trucks and shipping containers carrying trade supplies were parked miles away from the border crossings. Torkham connects Pakistan to Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and Chaman is located near Spin Boldak in Kandahar.
The latest developments come amid media reports that Pakistani troops backed by artillery targeted camps belonging to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, near the Afghan border, causing an unspecified number of militant casualties.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed to have carried out a number of attacks, including the Feb. 13 suicide assault in Lahore that killed seven police officer and six civilians. Pakistan says Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the main Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militant groups had been operating from Afghan areas near the Pakistani border and that Kabul in the past ignored Islamabad’s pleas to take action against them.
Shahbaz Sharif, Chief Minister in the eastern Punjab province, announced late Friday the arrest of a suspect in connection with the Feb. 13 suicide bombing.
He played a video containing what he said was the man’s confession, in which the man says he was associated with Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and that he helped the bomber to carry out the attack. Pakistan’s military said on Friday it summoned Afghan diplomats and handed over a list of 76 suspected “terrorists” who were hiding in Afghanistan. Pakistan wants immediate action by Afghan authorities, including the suspects’ extradition to Islamabad.
In Kabul, the Afghan government on Saturday summoned Pakistan’s Ambassador in protest of recent shelling in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces.
The Foreign Ministry summoned Ambassador Abrar Hussain in Kabul, where Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai sought an explanation from Hussain, but also gave his condolences regarding recent suicide attacks in Pakistan.
Also on Saturday, Afghan Army chief of staff Gen. Qadam Shah Shahim, said his forces have killed 1,955 Islamic State group fighters over the past year.
