Sensitive areas along Pak-Afghan border to be fenced by December

Pakistan will have unilaterally fenced “sensitive areas” along the country’s largely porous border with Afghanistan by the end of the year, discouraging terrorist infiltration in either direction, VOA reported on Friday.

According to reports, the massive army-led construction effort to fence the entire 2,611 kilometer western frontier and build new outposts, as well as forts, went into action more than a year ago.

Initially, the comprehensive border security plan focused on areas that Pakistani officials identified as highly vulnerable to terrorist infiltration and illegal crossings, and where they said Afghan forces on the other side have little or no presence due to capacity issues.

“Sensitive areas will be fenced by December 2018,” ISPR DG Major General Asif Ghafoor told VOA. The remaining, he vowed, would be completed “by December 2019.”

A pair of three-meter chain link fences, with a two-meter gap topped with barbed wire, has been installed along 310 kilometers, he said, explaining that the military also had raised new units of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) to deploy along the Afghan border once the construction of new installations was over.

“Yes, new FC wings will impact such increase but correspondingly [the] army might get thin along the border,” the general noted.