Amarkhel: Kamdish attack planned by Pakistani forces

JALALABAD (PAN): The Kamdish onslaught was commanded by Pakistani forces, Brig. Gen. Aminullah Amarkhel, the border police commander in the eastern zone, told Pajhwok Afghan News in a telephone interview on Saturday.

Hundreds of Taliban‘s Chetral district stormed a number of border police outposts in Kamdish. The fighting lasted for days. 

Amarkhel said 50 insurgents and 23 border police were killed, and 49 other insurgents, including 7 border police, were injured in the battle.

Before the Taliban attack, Pakistani forces had pounded the border checkpoints, demolishing two of them, he added.

He said, “We have recorded the radio conversation of Pakistani forces with the Taliban, ordering them to attack Kamdish from the Pakistani Chetral district as well as informing them of the Afghan Border Police’s movements and locations in the area.”

He added they have also arrested a Pakistani national who had crossed Afghanistan to retrieve unexploded shells.

He said local tribal elders have formed a 500-member shura to deal with the problems of communities. Local residents are dissatisfied with Nuristan government officials, he said.

Nuristan governor Jamaluddin Bader told Pajhwok that more than a half of those killed in Kamdish clash were Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis.

Bader asked the Interior Ministry to dispatch the 7th border police battalion to Kamdish instead of the Barikot district of Kunar province.

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