Afghanistan: we have proof that attackers trained in Pakistan

Afghanistan says it has proof attackers trained in Pakistan

Senior Afghan authorities say they have given neighboring Pakistan evidence showing that the militants who carried out a recent series of deadly attacks were trained on Pakistani soil.

Hawzah News Agency (Islamabad, Pakistan) - Afghan Interior Minister Wais Barmak and Masooom Stanekzai, head of the NDS intelligence service, told a press briefing in Kabul on Thursday that they had presented confessions by captured militants and other proof at a meeting a day earlier in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"We provided Pakistan with documents about Taliban operating centers inside Pakistan and we expect Pakistan to act against them," Barmak said.

The remarks come a day after Barmak and Stanekzai attended the meeting, along with senior Pakistani intelligence and military officials in Islamabad.

The Afghan officials said they told the Pakistani side that some of the militants had been trained at seminaries in the Pakistani border town of Chaman. They also asked Pakistan to take action to prevent further attacks.

Afghan officials said Pakistan had agreed to take "practical steps" to act on the information but that was immediately disputed by Pakistani authorities.

The Pakistan Embassy in Kabul said in a statement that "Pakistan has not given any commitment to give reply to the information received from the NDS Chief Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, during his trip to Islamabad, yesterday."

About 200 people have been killed over the past month in a series of attacks claimed by the Taliban and the Daesh terrorist group.

Afghan authorities detained one of the gunmen who attacked a military academy on Monday, killing nearly a dozen people in an assault claimed by Daesh.

Earlier in the week, Afghanistan's UN envoy Mahmoud Saikal tweeted that the father of one of the militants involved in the bloody Jan. 20 assault on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel "conceded his son was trained in Chaman" by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISIS).

Afghan demonstrators protested outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul on Thursday, burning the country's flags and chanting "Death to Pakistan".

The developments came during a period of heightened tension in the Afghan capital following two major attacks in the past two weeks.

Pakistan and Afghanistan regularly accuse each other of sheltering their enemy insurgents. The two sides also accuse each other of not doing enough to stop militants engaging in cross-border raids.

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