JALALABAD: At least 19 people were killed by an avalanche yesterday while crossing a remote mountain pass from Afghanistan to Pakistan, a Taleban official said. Scores of Afghans cross illegally to Pakistan every day through the porous mountain border in search of jobs or to buy essential goods for trade.
Najibullah Hassan Abdal, head of information for eastern Kunar province, told AFP rescue workers were still searching at the scene of the avalanche. "Nineteen bodies have been recovered already," he said. Illegal traffic across the Pakistan-Afghan border has soared since the Taleban returned to power in August, plunging the country into a severe crisis with tens of thousands of people made jobless.
Pakistan is attempting to fence the entire 2,670-kilometre (1,660 mile) frontier, known as the Durand line for the British colonial administrator who first drew it. Traders and smugglers have for centuries used well-trodden remote mountain passes to criss-cross the territories and avoid paying taxes.
But deadly avalanches are common in the area. In 2015 more than 250 people were killed across the country in a series of devastating avalanches.
Meanwhile, at least five Pakistan soldiers were killed by firing from neighbouring Afghanistan, Islamabad said Sunday, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taleban. It comes just days after Baloch separatists in the southwest killed nine Pakistan troops in a series of brazen attacks that officials said involved planners from Afghanistan as well as India.
After seizing power in August, Afghanistan's Taleban pledged terror groups would not be allowed to operate from the country, but Pakistan militant groups have long taken sanctuary across the porous border. They include the Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP), which on Sunday claimed responsibility for the attack in the Kurram district of rugged Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The TTP has been emboldened by the return to power of the Taleban in Afghanistan and has stepped up attacks since a month-long truce with the Pakistan government ended last year. The Taleban are separate groups in both countries, but share a common ideology and draw from people who live on either side of the border.
The TTP said it killed six Pakistani troops in Saturday night's attack, but the Pakistan military's public relations wing (ISPR) said five Frontier Corps members had died. "Own troops responded in a befitting manner," it said, adding "terrorists suffered heavy causalities".
Pakistan "strongly condemns the use of Afghan soil by terrorists", ISPR said. The army "is determined to defend Pakistan's borders against the menace of terrorism, and such sacrifices of our brave men further strengthen our resolve".
Premier in China
It took four days until Saturday for Pakistani troops to put an end to assaults by separatists in Balochistan province, with the army putting the final death toll at 20 militants and nine soldiers. The ISPR said intelligence agents intercepted communications during those assaults on army posts that showed militants had links to Afghanistan and India.
Separatists have waged an insurgency in the vast southwestern province for years, fuelled by anger that its abundant reserves of natural resources are not relieving citizens from crushing poverty. The fighting came as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was making an official visit to China, which has invested significantly in Balochistan, further stoking tensions.
Chinese investments in Balochistan are part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. A Pakistani security official told AFP on Friday that the attacks were an attempt to derail Khan's visit to China. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project linking China's far-western Xinjiang region with the strategic port of Gwadar in Balochistan has sparked claims that the vast influx of investment does not benefit locals.
While the economic corridor offers a lucrative gateway for China to the Indian Ocean, the security of its workers has long been a concern. Pakistan's government announced late last year it had entered a month-long truce with the TTP, facilitated by Afghanistan's Taleban, but that expired on December 9 after peace talks failed to make progress.
The TTP has been blamed for hundreds of suicide bomb attacks and kidnappings across the country, and for a while held sway over vast tracts of the country's rugged tribal belt, imposing a radical version of Islamic law.
But after the 2014 massacre of nearly 150 children at a Peshawar school, the Pakistan military sent huge numbers of troops into TTP strongholds and crushed the movement, forcing its fighters to retreat to Afghanistan. Earlier this week the Afghan Taleban again insisted foreign militant groups would not be allowed to operate inside the country.
"This is our responsibility and we have made a promise," Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told AFP in an interview. "We stand on this word, and we are working on it day and night-to strengthen our borders and our security." -- AFP