ISLAMABAD: Dozens of soldiers from Afghanistan who slipped across the border into Pakistan to seek refuge after their border post was overrun by the Taliban were “amicably returned” to Kabul, the Inter-Services Public Relations said Tuesday.
A total of 46 members of the Afghan National Army, including five officers, crossed the border late Sunday near the border town of Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the ISPR confirmed early Monday.
It said that a local ANA commander opposite Arandu town of Chitral had requested help for the soldiers as “they were unable to hold their military posts” along the border “due to [the] evolving security situation in Afghanistan.”
“These soldiers […] and Border Police were given safe passage into Pakistan, on their own request, by the Pakistan Army in Arundu Sector of the […] international border […] on July 25,” the military’s media wing said Tuesday.
“After necessary clearance, the Afghan soldiers [had] crossed into Pakistan with their weapons, ammunition and communication equipment.
The soldiers have now been amicably returned to Afghan authorities on their request along with their weapons and equipment.”
The ISPR affirmed Pakistan will “continue to extend all kinds of support” to its “Afghan brethren in time[s] of need”.
In a similar incident earlier this month, the army had “given safe passage into Pakistan” to 35 fleeing soldiers of the ANA who had asked for refuge and later, handed them over to Kabul “after due procedure”.
The Taliban have swiftly captured territory in recent weeks in Afghanistan and seized strategic border crossings with several neighbouring countries. They are also threatening a number of provincial capitals — advances that come as the last US and NATO soldiers complete their final withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The insurgents are said to now control about half of Afghanistan’s 419 district centres. The rapid fall of districts and the seemingly disheartened response by Afghan government forces have prompted US-allied warlords to resurrect militias with a violent history.
Hundreds of Afghan army soldiers and civil officials have fled to neighbouring Tajikistan, Iran and Pakistan in recent weeks after Taliban offensives in border towns.
For many Afghans weary of more than four decades of wars and conflict, fears are rising of another brutal civil war as American and NATO troops leave the country.
The Afghanistan government and Taliban negotiators have met in Qatar’s capital, Doha, in recent weeks, although diplomats say there have been few signs of substantive progress since peace talks began in September.
Reeling from battlefield losses, Afghanistan’s military is overhauling its war strategy against the Taliban to concentrate forces around critical areas such as Kabul and other cities, border crossings and vital infrastructure, Afghan and US officials have said.
