Afghan officials will discuss alleged cross-border attacks which have left at least 25 people dead with Pakistani Foreign Minster Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri when he visits tomorrow, an official said.
"The foreign minister is coming in a few days so that will certainly be discussed with him," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said on Monday.
At least 22 people were killed on Sunday in Paktika Province when heavily-armed militants attacked the district office in the border town of Barmal, 220km south of Kabul. Another three people were killed in an attack on another border district.
Ludin said the Barmal attack was launched from Pakistan.
"The attack was launched from across the border," he said.
"Over 200 people crossed the border and attacked the district administration in Barmal district of Paktika Province.
"This is not the only incident. Cross-border activities are one of the very common trends we see in some of the terrorist activities that happen in Afghanistan these days," he said.
Ludin said Kabul and Islamabad had to work together to counter such attacks.
"It's no time for old arguments and restating the same things, we really need to face this serious issue because if there is any major challenge still left for Afghanistan and for the entire region it is definitely the remnants of terrorist activities," the spokesman said.
"This is not a problem for Afghanistan only. Terrorists who attack Afghans, kill innocent Afghans in Paktika and Ghazni, are killing innocent people in [the Pakistani city of] Quetta."
Kabul regularly claims that militants cross the border to launch attacks while Islamabad claims they are carried out by insurgents based inside Afghanistan.
Islamabad on Monday appealed for cooperation instead of recriminations ahead of Kasuri's visit.
"The Taliban pose a threat to both Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are remnants of Taliban on the Afghan side, there are large concentrations, they are active there," foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.
"There may be some remnants on the Pakistani side," he conceded.
Relations between Kabul and Islamabad were strained last month by claims that Pakistani troops had crossed into Afghan territory and after a mob attack on the Pakistani embassy in Kabul.
Some 20 months after the fall of the Taliban, members of the militia continue to launch regular attacks on the coalition and government and foreign targets.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion