‘Taliban are not some military outfits, they are normal civilians’: Imran Khan

Lahore: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan claimed that the Taliban are not some military outfits but normal civilians. He also asked how Pakistan could hunt them down as around 3 million Afghanistan refugees are at the border.

‘Now, there are camps of 500,000 people; there are camps of 100,000 people. And Taliban are not some military outfits, they are normal civilians. And if there are some civilians in these camps, how is Pakistan supposed to hunt these people down? How can you call them sanctuaries?’ said Imran Khan in an interview with PBS NewsHour.

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‘Where are these safe-havens? There are three million refugees in Pakistan who are of the same ethnic group as the Taliban…,’ added the Pakistan Prime Minister.

Earlier the Afghanistan government accused Pakistan of helping the Taliban militia. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of providing the militant group with financial aids and intelligence output, but Imran Khan dismissed these as ‘extremely unfair’.

As per a report published by the UN Security Council, about 6,000 terrorists of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are operating on the Afghan side of the border. As per the report, the TTP supports the Afghan Taliban terrorists inside Afghanistan against Afghan Forces. UN monitors note that TTP has distinctive anti-Pakistan objectives but also supports the Afghan Taliban militarily inside Afghanistan against Afghan government forces.