Seven Pakistani Soldiers Killed by Insurgents
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border, created by British colonists in 1893, divides the Pashtun ethnic group (Wikimedia Commons).
Militants from Afghanistan ambushed soldiers in northwest Pakistan on May 5, killing four and injuring six others. The soldiers were constructing a fence in the Zhob district of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, along the national border with Afghanistan.
In southwest Pakistan, a shootout at the compound of the Pakistani Taliban killed three Pakistani soldiers and two insurgents on the same day.
The Balochistan construction is part of a 1,500-mile fence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that Pakistan’s central government began constructing in 2017 to deter illegal immigration, smuggling, and militant operations. But Afghanistan’s government protested the construction, arguing that the frontier would separate families and communities from the Pashtun tribe.
The colonial partition between Afghanistan and Pakistan, known as the Durand Line, was drawn in 1893 by the British. The Durand Line, which forms the modern border, did not account for tribal demography. As a result, the Pashtun tribe, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, lives on both sides of the border, and it is heavily concentrated in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Kabul does not recognize the border with Pakistan and claims sovereignty over parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pashtun nationalists on both sides of the border have called for an independent Pashtunistan.
As a result of decades of civil war with Afghanistan, more than 1.7 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan. The tensions in the region have caused decades of sporadic violence, making the Durand Line one of the most unstable borders in the world.
Pakistan’s government denounced the southwestern ambush and said such attacks undermine efforts to stabilize the border. Although no group claimed responsibility, the Pakistani government called on Afghanistan to enact measures within its borders to prevent future attacks. Both countries have historically accused one another of facilitating militant group activities along the border.
Forces on both sides of the border have opened fire in the past. In July 2020, 22 people were killed in the crossfire as a crowd of civilians tried to cross the border into Afghanistan.
The fence border controversy has emboldened militant groups who oppose Pakistan’s central government. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for detonating a car bomb and killing four people in April at a hotel in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital.
As Pakistan completes the fence frontier and insurgents regroup near the border, tensions along the Durand Line and between the two countries will likely continue to escalate.