TTP abducted Pakistani diplomats, Afghanistan tells Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan government has officially shared with Pakistan that two Pakistani diplomatic officials who were abducted from near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, around three months back, were actually abducted by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Mullah Fazlullah’s orders, Pakistan Today has learnt reliably.

None of the terrorists’ organisations either TTP or ISIS had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. A well-placed source in the federal government told this scribe requesting not being named that this stark revelation proved Pakistan’s stance that Mullah Fazlullah has a free run in Afghanistan’s provinces neighbouring Pakistan and posed a permanent threat to peace.

The abducted Pakistani officials were based in a consulate office in Jalalabad. They were abducted as they traveled by road back to their homeland. Details of their recovery have never been shared with media, nor was information of who had taken the diplomatic officials into custody. Afghan government forces are fighting both the Taliban insurgents and fighters loyal to Islamic State for control of territory in Nangarhar.

However, there has been no action against the TTP or other smaller groups who are involved in subversive attacks into Pakistan. On July 27, however, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani personally called the Pakistani charge d‘affairs in Kabul to share the news of the operation for recovery. Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua had made a phone call to the Afghan side and conveyed Pakistan’s gratitude to the Afghan government.

Later, the staff officials were handed them over to Pakistan. “The abducted officials had been abducted by TTP Maullah Fazlullah Group,” a senior official said. The official added that later another militant group had got hold of the staff members by force from the TTP.

The staff said that later operatives of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) intercepted the kidnappers and recovered the staff members.

The consulate officials’ recovery marked a welcome piece of warm sentiment between the Afghan and Pakistan governments, each of which faces attacks from separate Islamist groups seeking to establish a hard-line version of Islamic sharia law.