Thaindian News

Islamabad, Aug 28 (IANS) Pakistan has lodged a protest with Afghanistan over the cross-border raids by Taliban on seven Pakistani check posts that left 25 security personnel dead.

The army said about 300 Taliban militants from Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces attacked the check posts early Saturday morning in Chitral district near the Afghan border.

Islamabad Saturday summoned the Afghan charge d’Affaires to the foreign ministry to lodge a protest, Xinhua reported quoting a statement from the ministry.

“The activities of the terrorists are a matter of great concern to both the governments and peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They cannot be allowed to continue such blatant attacks from across the border,” the ministry said.

Pakistan has called on the coalition forces and the Afghan Army to take immediate steps to prevent such incursions by militants from safe havens from across the border, it said.

The army said the victims included 16 paramilitary troopers, four policemen and five local militias.

Reinforcements were sent to beef up the check posts, the army’s Inter-Services Public Relations said.

It said that militant leaders Maulvi Fazlullah and Maulvi Faqir Muhammad planned the attack.

Fazaullah fled to Afghanistan after Pakistani forces launched a major offensive in 2009 against the militants in the area. Maulvi Faqir, the deputy chief of Pakistani Taliban, fled to Afghanistan last year, the army said.

“Since their expulsion from their native areas, the terrorists have organized themselves in Kunar and Nooristan provinces with the support of local Afghan authorities,” the army said in a statement.

Due to “scanty presence” of NATO and Afghan forces along the Pakistan-Afghan border, the militants are using these areas as safe havens and mounted repeated attacks against Pakistani security forces, it added.