Pakistan Now Building Security Barrier Along Afghan Border

Pakistan has begun the construction of a border fence throughout large sections of what is known to be one of the most difficult and most dangerous terrains in the world, its 2,430 km (1,509.9 mi) border stretch with Afghanistan. The line currently cuts the core of the regions Pashtun ethnic group down the middle.

Officials in Pakistan said that Taliban militants have been launching attacks across the border, a colonial-era limit which neighboring Afghanistan has never officially recognized, the AP reports.

A long and Treacherous terrain.
Image by Peter Hermes Furian via Shutterstock

On Saturday, Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa visited tribal areas along the border and announced that the construction of a fence was in progress in some high-risk areas, tribal regions where the country’s laws don’t fully apply, stating that the secured border would be “In the mutual interest of both brotherly countries who have given phenomenal sacrifices in the war against terrorism”.

In the meanwhile, officials in Afghanistan have accused Pakistan of harboring Islamic militants from the Pashtun controlled Taliban, and that the construction of a fence is not the answer, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal.

Pakistan has already dug a trench hundreds of miles long along another section of the border.