ISLAMABAD: The United States (US) will take action if it sees the Pakistani Taliban and other militants regrouping in Afghanistan and using it as a “launch pad for attacks on Pakistan,” a State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday, amid a rise in militant attacks in parts of Pakistan.
The statement came days after the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for an attack that killed three police officers in Nowshera district of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last week.
This was the second attack claimed by the militant group after it announced an end to a months-long cease-fire with the government late last month, claiming a suicide attack in the southern Pakistani city of Quetta that killed four people and wounded more than 30.
The US said on Wednesday it believed the Afghan Taliban were either unable or unwilling to live up to the commitments that they had made in a number of areas, including counterterrorism.
“We also have capabilities when it comes to counterterrorism in the region that does not leave us entirely beholden to the Taliban,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a press briefing on Wednesday.
“We will take action in a way that protects our interests.”
The TTP, which wants to impose its own brand of Islamic Shariah law in Pakistan, is not directly affiliated with the Afghan Taliban, but has pledged allegiance to them. The group has carried out some of the bloodiest attacks in the South Asian country since 2007, including a 2014 assault on a military-run school in Peshawar which killed at least 134 students.
Since late last year, the Afghan Taliban had been facilitating peace talks between Pakistani Taliban militants and the government in Islamabad until it collapsed in late November.
Pakistan’s army has also conducted in recent months several operations against the TTP in the restive districts along the country’s border with Afghanistan.
Price said the US had also demonstrated its counterterrorism capabilities in recent months with the killing of the now-deceased Al-Qaeda emir, Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
“It is, of course, our broader goal to see to it that terrorists and others aren’t able to use Afghanistan as a launch pad for attacks on Pakistan,” he said.
“We are determined to work with our partners in the region, including Pakistan, to do what we can to take on the threat of terrorism in the region, and certainly the threat of terrorism that extends well beyond the region.”
