Afghanistan Times
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There is no single doubt that Pakistan—our hostile neighbor has been supporting and harboring various terrorist groups—the evil forces, in which Afghan and foreign forces are fighting with. The recent deadly attacks had claimed by those terrorist outfits, sitting in Pakistan in their hideouts. Fortunately, the world has noticing this as in the past several American high-ranking officials accused Pakistan of sheltering terrorists. The commander of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, US Army Gen. John Nicholson, recently said that Pakistan had not changed its behavior since President Donald Trump announced his new policy for Afghanistan and the wider region, a policy that specifically called on Pakistan to do much more. “No, I haven’t seen any change yet in their behavior,” Nicholson said following a meeting of the NATO defense minister in Brussels when asked whether he had seen any increased cooperation from Pakistan with regards to eliminating Taliban sanctuaries. Moreover, the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said that Pakistan has had long-standing ties to the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban. He said that relations with the militant organizations might have helped Pakistan’s stability in the past, but they no longer served that purpose. This statement by Tillerson did not digest Pakistani officials and he was got a frosty welcome in Pakistan because Washington tuned up the heat on Islamabad for providing safe havens for Taliban militants. It is very obvious that cutting its long-standing ties with certain terrorist outfits is in the interest of Pakistan because when there is fight, Islamabad will also remain in war as the militant groups are the childbirth of that country. Since Pakistan is the mother of terrorist outfits, so that country also suffers if not today, but surely tomorrow as terrorists has no boundary. Afghanistan has been in war for more than 40 decades, and the Afghan masses are desperately waiting for peace and stability to be restored. Beside military, the Afghan civilians have been bearing the brunt of casualties and worst victim of global war on terror. Furthermore, just three days ago, John C. Rood, the nominee for US’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, criticized Pakistan’s continued support to terrorist and providing a safe havens to Taliban and Haqqani network, saying Washington would not tolerate such actions anymore. Rood furthered that existence of Taliban and Haqqani network safe havens in Pakistan’s soil are a real threat to the US efforts in Afghanistan. Such statements generates hope among Afghan masses that the elimination of terrorist hideouts is very near and eventually there will be an end to the longest war. Once US succeeded in removing insurgent hideouts, it will not take a month to kill all the terrorists because they (militants) already lost influence to fight Afghan forces face-to-face in battlefield. The safe haven of insurgent groups in Pakistan is a big concern to us as our government always showed anxiety and called for its purged all the time. Once we destroyed their (militants) hideouts there would peace and prosperity not in Afghanistan but to the region and the world.
