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07-08-2021
By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies
KABUL/QUETTA/ ISLAMABAD: Demanding a complete dismissal or leniency in the visa requirements for Afghans by Pakistan, the Taliban on Friday closed a major frontier with Pakistan.
“No one would be allowed through until Islamabad dropped or relaxed its visa requirements for Afghans,” they said.
The Taliban, wresting control of Afghanistan in the wake of a withdrawal of US and other foreign troops, last month captured the southeast Chaman-Spin Boldak border crossing from Afghan forces.
Pakistan initially closed its side of the crossing, landlocked Afghanistan’s second busiest entry point and main commercial artery to the sea, before reopening it last week but since the Taliban took control of Chaman-Spin Boldak, Pakistani border officials there have begun enforcing visa requirements for Afghans which previously were not as strictly observed.
In a statement on Friday, the Taliban called on Pakistan to scrap all visa requirements for Afghans.
“(The crossing) will remain closed for all types of commuting, including transit and trade, for both sides, and pedestrians, until the Pakistani side leaves the gate open, morning to evening, for Afghans holding [Pakistani issued] migration cards or ID cards,” the insurgent group’s shadow governor for Kandahar province said in the statement.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group’s leadership had endorsed the move, and on Friday the border had been closed.
Since US-led foreign troops began leaving Afghanistan earlier this year, fighting between the Taliban and Afghan forces has escalated significantly. In recent weeks, the Taliban have advanced rapidly on provincial capitals and targeted top government officials inside Kabul.
The group has also taken control of several border crossings, including with Iran and Central Asian countries, but the crossing with Pakistan provides a significant customs revenue.
Afghan government data indicates the route was used by 900 trucks a day before the Taliban seized it.
The closure could impact import of medicines and other essential goods as violence has sharply escalated in Afghanistan amidst a pandemic, with the United Nations saying hundreds of thousands have been displaced internally.
Spokespersons for Pakistan’s Foreign and Interior ministries did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Pakistani border officials at Chaman told Reuters the Taliban had placed concrete barriers to block the road on their side of the Friendship Gate, the crossing point between the two countries.
Pakistan responded by closing its side of the border on Friday, leaving pedestrians, passenger vehicles, and cargo trucks stranded.
Many Afghans living in Pakistan have been issued migration cards by Islamabad allowing them to stay, but those who want to enter Pakistan today need to obtain a visa.
Pakistan is considered key in convincing the Taliban to participate meaningfully in the peace talks with the Afghan government.
Meanwhile, Taliban captured an Afghan provincial capital on Friday amid a deteriorating security situation as the US and other foreign troops withdraw from the country.
A police spokesman in southern Nimroz province said the capital Zaranj had fallen to the Taliban because of a lack of reinforcements from the Western-backed government.
Fighting to re-impose a rule 20 years after they were ousted from power by US-led forces, the Taliban have intensified their campaign to defeat the government.
The insurgents have taken dozens of districts and border crossings in recent months and put pressure on several provincial capitals, including Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south, as the foreign forces pull out.
In New York, UN special envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons questioned the Taliban’s commitment to a political settlement, telling the UN Security Council the war had entered a deadlier and more destructive phase “reminiscent of Syria, recently, or Sarajevo, in the not-so-distant past”.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the prospects of Afghanistan slipping into full-scale and protracted civil war “is a stark reality”.
Senior US diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis urged the Taliban to halt their offensive, pursue a political settlement and protect Afghanistan’s infrastructure and people.
Zaranj was the first provincial capital to fall to the Taliban since the United States reached a deal with it in February 2020 for a US troop pullout. A local source said the Taliban had seized the governor’s office, the police headquarters and an encampment near the Iranian border.
Taliban sources said the group was celebrating and Zaranj’s fall would lift the morale of their fighters. A Taliban commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Zaranj has strategic importance as it is on the border with Iran.
Taliban claim killing senior govt official
The fall of Zaranj comes the same day the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing the head of the Afghan government’s media information department, Dawa Khan Menapal.
Just days earlier, the Taliban had warned of targetting senior administration figures in retaliation for increased air strikes.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the death, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid sending a message to media saying “he was killed in a special attack carried out by mujahideen”.
