Taliban movement goes unchecked along porous Pak-Afghan border
By ANIFriday, February 5, 2010
ISLAMABAD - The porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan provide an easy route to the extremists based in the region to hop in and out giving the security forces a miss.
Not only in the ungoverned tribal regions along the border, one can easily move across the border from areas where there is substantial presence of the Pakistani troops.
Despite the deployment of security officials along these passages, movement of goods go uncheck.
The Friendship Gate at the Chaman crossing in Balochistan between Afghanistan and Pakistan draws heavy traffic, however, the border guards rarely check any of the vehicle or people passing through the gate.
People say they can easily enter Pakistan by bribing guards on either side of the border or by paying taxi drivers a similarly token amount to drive them across. The guards do not ask those in the taxi for identification or search the trunk.
While Pakistani and Afghan officials blame one another for the lack of border security, the foreign troops such as the NATO and the allied forces led by the US are also to br blamed for the unchecked movement, which may prove catastrophic with the extremists transferring heavy explosives from one country to another.
“The Afghans are indeed of no real help there, but neither are the NATO or U.S. troops,” The New York Times quoted senior Western intelligence official, as saying.
The Pakistani officials complain that they are not well equipped to prevent the Taliban insurgents from crossing the border easily.
“They may be crossing through Chaman, all right. They don’t cross with weapons, so how will you separate them from ordinary people?”said said Maj. Gen. Salim Nawaz, of the Pakistani Frontier Corps.
Not only explosives, Pakistani officials admitted that the drug mafia use the passage to smuggle truckloads of hashish, opium and heroin on a regular basis.
“There is a lot of narcotics smuggling going on.But our biggest concern are the weapons that are coming in from Afghanistan,” said Col. Javed Nasir, a Pakistani border commander. (ANI)
