Rawalpindi, Pakistan: Pakistan Army has rejected claims of Afghan media about its involvement in Kunduz attack or supporting Taliban anywhere in Afghanistan.
A spokesman of Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) on Tuesday trongly rejected a media report appearing in a section of Afghan press regarding involvement of Pakistani security officials in Kunduz attack.
Spokespersons said:
The allegations leveled by an Afghan official are totally unfounded, baseless, uncalled for and mischivious. While Pakistan has already supported Afghan led and Afghan owned peace process and condemned Kunduz attack, such allegations are not even comprehensible. Such accusations are not a responsible behaviour and need not be repeated in the better interest of addressing the actual threat.
It may be mentioned that Taliban claimed to have captured Kunduz on September 18 after a fight of over one year. NATO, USA and Afghan armies launched aerial as well as ground attacks and cleared some parts of the main city.
On September 18, the Afghan media reports said that the Taliban militants entered to Kunduz Civil Hospital, the Public Health Department and took control of the Agriculture Department and Zakhil and Saydarak areas. Afghan government kept denying stories of fall of Kunduz till such time that Kunduz fall story came the lead of international newspapers and media outlets.
On October 3, 2015, military jets of NATO destroyed a hospital in Kunduz during a overnight “aerial attack” that killed over 50 people including doctors and staff of an international NGO –Medecins Sans Frontieres staff. NATO jets and US forces conducted an overnight airstrike in Kunduz at 2:15am on Saturday October 3 and targeted hospital. Almost all the hospital was burnt down that was run by International NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). USA faced world criticism over attack on hospital.
On October 6, General John Campbell, commander of United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the decision to carry out that bombing was made within the US chain of command.
“Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure” before a strike occurs. “To be clear, the decision to provide aerial fires was a U.S. decision made within the U.S. chain of command. “A hospital was mistakenly struck. We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility”, said General Campbell.
Since Afghan government, USA and NATO forces are in critical situation and Taliban are again rising in Afghanistan, Afghan media has again started blame game against Pakistan.
Senior journalist and analyst who covered Afghan War as reporter in 1996-97 Agha Iqrar Haroon believed that rise of Taliban may continue as north has fallen to Taliban first time in the history of Taliban war in Afghanistan. When asked to comment, Haroon said that situation is highly critical for entire Central Asia as war has reached Central Asian borders and Tajikistan is also in danger.
