Nirendra Dev
New Delhi: Taliban have taken control of over 80% of Afghanistan and all the borders the country shares with its neighbors.
That Pakistan had all sorts of nexus with the Taliban in Afghanistan was a known fact.
Recent reports say 'Afghan Taliban' and their local associates are not only active in Pakistan’s border regions, but the bodies of militants killed in Afghanistan have arrived in Pakistan, prayers are being held, and 'wounded Taliban' are being treated in local hospitals.
The Taliban militants enjoy 'sanctuaries' in Pashtun areas of Balochistan province and, the slain Taliban are brought to be buried in cemeteries in Quetta and surrounding areas, including Kuchlak, Duki, and Pishin.
“Prayers are held in the mosques," claims a report in 'Voice of America'.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has also started talking about an imminent civil war in Afghanistan.
Amid the Taliban being able to sweep through much of Afghanistan's northern areas and the US-led foreign troops completing their withdrawal, Imran said that the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Pakistan could meet and try to help facilitate a peace process in Afghanistan.
"….we will go on and try to have a summit so that we can stop what looks like a civil war" in Afghanistan, Imran Khan said in Tashkent addressing a joint press conference with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
In an interview with The New York Times in June, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan had used its leverage on the Taliban to bring the militant group to the negotiating table with the US and the Afghan government.
“It was us really pushing them, pressurizing them to talk to the Afghan government,” Khan claimed.
A new United Nations report has also said the Afghan Taliban have not fulfilled promises to sever nexus with Al-Qaeda.
The report charged that Al-Qaeda is active in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan and operates under the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“The group is reported to be such an ‘organic’ or essential part of the insurgency that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate it from its Taliban allies,” the UN report said.
Colin Clarke, an expert and Director of Policy & Research at the Soufan Group has already said that “If Afghanistan does descend back into a civil war, the Taliban need Al-Qaeda. They need to team up with them against the Afghan government, against potential rivals like Islamic State."
The French government announced that a special flight would fly on July 17 morning from Kabul to allow the whole French community to return to France.
The Taliban offered a three-month truce in exchange for the release of 7,000 insurgent captives, said an Afghan government negotiator on Thursday.
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