Pakistan's interior minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, during an interview with Geo News said that families of Afghan Taliban reside in his country, including in the capital city of Islamabad.
He also said the Taliban receive medical treatment in Pakistani hospitals.
“Taliban families live here--in Pakistan, in Rawat, Loi Ber, Bara Kahuh and Tarnol,” Rashid told the Urdu-language network citing the names of Islamabad suburbs.
“Sometimes their dead bodies arrive and sometimes they come here in hospitals to get medical treatment,” he said.
Earlier in the month Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in an interview with TOLOnews denied the presence of Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan, saying most of the group's leaders “are in Afghanistan” and when asked about the presence of Quetta and Peshawar Shuras, or councils, he denied the existence of such institutions in Pakistan and said he “has been hearing of these terms for now decades.”
Asked whether Taliban are "funded here in Pakistan," Qureshi said: “These are very--those many things that have been going on for years. You’re stuck in the old groove. Get of out that groove, please. Get out of that groove. Now, listen, if you remain stuck in this, believe me, you will not be able to travel far. And we want you to travel far. We want reconciliation and peace.”
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in an op-ed published by The Washington Post said that his country opposes any military takeover of Afghanistan and that “the Taliban cannot win over the whole of the country, and yet must be included in any government for it to succeed.”
The Taliban has intensified its attacks on Afghan forces over the last two months following US President Joe Biden's announcement of the withdrawal of American forces from the country by September 11.
At least 50 districts have either fallen to the Taliban or remained contested in the last two months. Many of those captured areas were taken by the Taliban who faced no resistance by security forces. Sources told TOLOnews that many districts fell due to delays in reinforcements.
On Friday, June 25, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his country will not take military action against the Taliban if the group takes over Afghanistan by force. However, quoted in an article by The New York Times, Khan said that “Pakistan will only recognize a government which is chosen by the people of Afghanistan, whichever government they choose.”
“Let me assure you, we will do everything except use military action against the Taliban,” Khan replied when asked what Pakistan would do if the Taliban took over Afghanistan by force. “I mean, we will do everything up to that. All sections of our society have decided that Pakistan will take no military action.”
“Now, we are fencing it, and almost 90 percent of the border, we’ve fenced now,” Khan said. “What if [the] Taliban try to take over Afghanistan through [the] military? Then we will seal the border because now we can, because we have fenced our border, which was previously [open], because Pakistan does not want to get into, number one, conflict, secondly, we do not want another influx of refugees.”
Khan said that after the US withdrawal, he wished that Pakistan and the US could fix their “lopsided” equation of the past.