PESHAWAR: Military officials believe there are around 1,500 Pakistani militants based in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nuristan provinces bordering Pakistan and ready to launch cross-border attacks in Mohmand and Bajaur tribal agencies and the districts of Lower Dir, Upper Dir and possibly Chitral.

The Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps (FC) officials said they have taken

steps to repulse any new attack by the militants from across the Pak-Afghan

border. Requesting anonymity, they said there were reports that the militants

wanted to open a new front by launching an attack in Chitral from their bases

in Afghanistan. They said an FC Wing had been sent to Chitral to reinforce

the troops and thwart any attack in the border area of Arandu, which is sited

on the banks of river Chitral and located across Barikot village in

Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

The security forces in Upper and Lower Dir had also been augmented. They

would primarily serve as a back-up force to the Dir Police and Dir Levies

that are still manning some of the joint posts near the border with

Afghanistan even though they suffered heavy losses in the two cross-border

assaults by the Pakistani militants. The FC personnel have now been deployed

at these joint security posts to add to their muscle-power.

The Afghanistan-based militants, affiliated to the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban

Pakistan (TTP) and hailing mostly from Malakand division and Mohmand and

Bajaur tribal regions, attacked the Kharki border post manned by Dir Levies

and Police in Lower Dir district on April 21 and according to the official

sources killed 16 cops and Levies personnel. In the second cross-border

attack on a joint post of Dir Police and Levies on June 1 in Shaltalo village

in Upper Dir, 45 policemen and Levies personnel were killed. Video footage

that subsequently emerged showed the militants ruthlessly executing the

captured men from point-blank range.

The cross-border attacks by the TTP militants in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies

were thwarted with the help of local pro-government lashkar and the death

toll was minimal. Pakistan has asked the Afghan government and Nato forces

based in Afghanistan to stop the attacks. Pakistani officials are now

publicly claiming that the TTP militants, who fled to Afghanistan after being

evicted from their strongholds in Swat and rest of Malakand division and

Bajaur and Mohmand agencies as a result of military operations, were getting

support from the Afghan authorities.

Pakistan is also pushing the Afghan government and Nato authorities to set up

more border posts in Afghanistan to stop infiltration of fighters into

Pakistani territory. The Pakistan Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the

media on Thursday that the issue was discussed in a recent meeting of the

joint military commission of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US in Peshawar and

proposals for better border controls were put forward. He pointed out that

Pakistan had set up more than 900 border posts on its territory in the tribal

areas and elsewhere on the Durand Line, but there were around 100 such posts

on the Afghan side.

FC officials estimated that 600-700 Pakistani militants had set up bases in

Afghanistan facing Mohmand Agency, another 400-500 were based across the

border from Bajaur Agency and 300 were on the Afghan side threatening the two

Dir districts. The total is around 1,500 and all of them were based in Kunar

and Nuristan, where the US-led coalition forces abandoned remote outposts

after suffering heavy casualties and where the Afghan government has little

physical presence.

Intelligence sources reported a recent meeting of Pakistani militants

presided over by the Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah. The sources said

TTP Bajaur commander Maulana Faqir Mohammad, the organisation’s Mohmand

Agency head Abdul Wali alias Omar Khalid, and others attended the meeting and

decided to make forays into Chitral and attempt more attacks in Bajaur and

Mohmand agencies and Upper and Lower Dir. The TTP hasn’t said anything about

any such meeting, though the Swat Taliban spokesman Omar Hasan Ahrabi had in

the past claimed responsibility for the cross-border attacks by their

militants in Lower Dir and Upper Dir. He had also conceded that some “Afghan

friends” had joined the TTP fighters in organising these attacks from bases