Pakistan Announces Plans to Fence and Mine Border with Afghanistan

[WhiteTara]

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-12-26-voa15.cfm

Pakistan has announced plans to fence and mine sections of its frontier with Afghanistan to help prevent cross-border raids by pro-Taleban militants. The controversial proposal follows repeated criticism from both U.S. and Afghan officials who have accused Pakistan of failing to secure the lawless border area. VOA's Benjamin Sand has more from Islamabad.

The border has been at the center of a growing dispute between the two south Asian neighbors.

Afghanistan insists pro-Taleban militants have established a series of bases inside Pakistan and are staging deadly cross border raids.

snip

Thousands of tribal Pashtun families live on either side of the border and Afghan officials say fencing the area off would unfairly divide the tight knit and fiercely independent communities.

Khan dismissed those concerns saying Pakistan reserves the right to act unilaterally to secure the border and control its own territory.



this is the area that they are going to fence! The whole world has gone insane and I see lots of children mutilated for years to come because of the land mines

[Barrett808]

1. Yes, mines are the gift that will keep on giving for many years. n/t

[Mrs. Overall]

2. Yet another Bush legacy--Fences between neighbors

[Eugene]

3. Reuters: Analysis-Pakistan's Afghan border fence plan "impractical"

ANALYSIS-Pakistan's Afghan border fence plan "impractical"
27 Dec 2006 12:40:50 GMT
Source: Reuters

-snip-

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD, Dec 27 (Reuters) - A Pakistani plan to build a fence and lay
landmines on parts of its Afghan border is impractical and will not stop an
intensifying Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, analysts said on Wednesday.

Pakistan said on Tuesday it would fence and mine parts of its border with
Afghanistan to stop Taliban insurgents crossing.

-snip-

Analysts in Pakistan agreed, saying it would be impossible to effectively seal a
largely unmarked frontier that stretches 2,500 km (1,500 miles) from snow-covered
mountains in the north to remote deserts on the border with Iran in the south.

"This is impractical. It cannot be fenced, it cannot be mined," said Asad Durrani,
a former chief of Pakistan's main Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

"It cannot be covered by observation and fire and if that is not done, they (the
fence and mines) do not serve their purpose, they can be breached."

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP156908.htm