Iran to Build Fence Along Pakistan Border: Iran-Pakistan Border Dispute
Iran has started building a 700 kilometre-long concrete wall along its border with Pakistan. Pakistan’s neighbour to the west has also increased patrols along the border with Pakistan and has stepped up checks on pilgrims crossing the international border.
In addition, the border’s zero point had not been opened for 17 hours causing a severe shortage of food and other essential items in the colonies alongside the border.
This stringent security comes in the wake of a bomb blast in Zahidan on February 17, which killed thirteen people, including nine Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials, and another incident in which four people were killed, and two kidnapped from along the Pak-Iran border. The construction of the 3-foot thick and 10-foot high wall entails the use of extra strength steel rods.
Iran Asks Pakistan to Vacate Border Town
Iranian border security forces have given an ultimatum to the residents of a Pakistani border town to vacate the town within 10 days, Daily Times has learnt.
Residents of the Sorap locality in the Mand area of western Mekran region in Balochistan province told a group of journalists visiting the area that they did not know why the Iranian border forces were asking them to leave their homes.
The people of Mand, which falls in the constituency of Federal Minister Zobaida Jalal, depend on edible goods illegally coming from Iran.
‘Our livelihood hugely depends on goods from Iran, but that does not mean that Iran should be dictating us to leave our homes,’,said Qaim Khan, a local elder.
Balochistan government spokesman Raziq Bugti said he did not know about any such warning from the Iranian side.
india-defence.com
US Forces Pursue Taliban Into Pakistan”
WASHINGTON (AP) – American forces on Afghanistan’s eastern border routinely fire upon and pursue Taliban enemies into Pakistan, defense officials told Congress on Thursday, offering the most detailed description to date of U.S. action in that region.
They said the Taliban threat is greater now than it was a year ago, and they agreed that the Pakistan government can and must do more to get at the large, ungoverned sectors along the remote Pakistan border that are safe havens for Taliban insurgents.
‘We have all the authorities we need to pursue, either with (artillery) fire or on the ground, across the border,’ said Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Lute, who is chief operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said soldiers can respond if there is an imminent threat. But he said they would have to seek the Pakistan government’s permission to go after a munitions factory further inside the Pakistani border.
The discussion came just days after Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in an effort to urge a more aggressive Pakistani effort to hunt al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who are expected to increase attacks into Afghanistan this spring.
The Pakistani military has been more aggressive in going after al-Qaida than the Taliban, who are more protected by tribal leaders in some of the border regions.
I’d say the fence is to keep the US out as well…