Islamabad to fence eastern border with Afghanistan

Islamabad: Pakistan said yesterday it would fence and mine portions of its 2,400km porous border with Afghanistan to prevent militant infiltration into the neighbouring country plagued by Taliban insurgency.

"The Pakistan army has been tasked to work out modalities for selective fencing and mining the Pak-Afghan border," Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan told a news conference.

These steps "supplement the measures which are already enforced to prevent any militant activity from Pakistan inside Afghanistan", the foreign secretary said.

Khan said designated crossing points on the border would continue to work while Pakistan would strictly monitor the camps of Afghan refugees the country still shelters.

He said Pakistan was expediting the process of registration of Afghan refugees, whose number in the country is estimated to be between two and three million, most living in the northwestern province and southwestern Balochistan.

The foreign secretary urged the United Nations to expedite the relocation of Afghan refugees.

Suicide bombers

Previously Kabul had consistently turned down Islamabad's proposal for fencing of the border amid the Afghan government's unrelenting allegations of cross frontier movement of militants from the Pakistani side.

Meanwhile, the Afghan authorities said they had arrested a Pakistani national who had allegedly been providing suicide bombers to the Taliban in eastern Paktika province.

The man, whose name was not revealed, was "in charge of recruiting suicide bombers and equipping them", provincial governor Mohammad Akram Khpolwak said. He was arrested from Bermal district in the bordering Paktika province on Monday, the governor said.