Islamabad, July 2 (Xinhua) Pakistan’s Army has deployed troops to a stretch of the Afghan border to stop Taliban militants fleeing a major US offensive in southern Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Thursday.
Major General Athar Abbas told Geo TV that they had “mustered more troops from the other areas of the border” to deploy opposite the Helmand region,
“It is sort of a reorganisation,” he said, adding that the threat of militants crossing over had been “visualised”. He however gave no more details.
Nearly 4,000 US marines plus 650 Afghan forces moved into Afghanistan’s Helmand province early Thursday to take on the Taliban in one of their strongholds.
Pakistani and US officials have expressed concern that the American troops’ build-up in southern Afghanistan could push the militants across the poorly guarded and mountainous border into Pakistan.
Pakistan shares a 2,600-km border with Afghanistan. The section opposite Helmand is around 260 km long and lies in the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan, where US officials believe that the Taliban’s top leadership are hiding.
