Thaindian News

Islamabad, Oct 18 (IANS) Pakistan has deployed the army and the paramilitary along the frontier with Afghanistan to stop cross-border militants’ attacks, the chief military spokesman said Tuesday.

Major General Athar Abbas said that Pakistan will not allow militants to carry out attacks on border check-posts and villages and to kill security forces and civilians, Xinhua reported.

The spokesman told state radio that about 100 paramilitary troopers, border police and tribal militia have so far been killed in militants’ attacks from Afghan soil over the past three to four months.

He said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was informed about these attacks, besides pointing out the location of hideouts of militants, but no action has so far been taken which may prove that safe havens and bunkers have been destroyed or militants have fled from there, he added.

“Apparently it seems that there is no presence of Afghan army or ISAF in the vast area from where militants are operating against Pakistan,” Abbas said.

He said about 37 security personnel were killed in the northern district of Chitral last month.

He said Dir district in the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province is the most affected area of militants’ attacks and terrorist groups that fled to Afghanistan from the Swat valley in 2009 are involved in these attacks.

“We strengthened all border check-posts and increased the number of troops in Dir district,” he said, adding that the militants have safe havens in Afghanistan’s Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces and there are no security forces in most of these areas of Afghanistan.

“It seems the militants are being supported locally and operating freely,” the spokesman said.