Islamabad: Call it a gaffe or an honest confession, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan admitted for the first time that the roots of Taliban lay in Pakistan.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Khan also blamed the US for using Pakistan to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan and later dumping it. “After the Soviets’ defeat, the US abandoned Afghanistan and sanctioned Pakistan, leaving behind more than five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and a bloody civil war in Afghanistan. And it is from this security vacuum emerged the Taliban, many born and educated in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan,” he said as quoted by Dawn.com.
Khan has been a vocal supporter of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and even stated that Afghans had broken the shackles of slavery with the Taliban takeover. However, facing backlash for ‘queering the pitch’ for Pakistan on various global platforms, Khan has been involved in some serious damage control, even empathising with US President Joe Biden for being forced to withdraw American troops from the embattled country.
However, the cricketer-turned-lawmaker continues to cry afoul over the step-motherly treatment meted out to his country by Washington. But amid this, his statement on the roots of the Taliban only lends credence to the charges levelled on his country for harbouring terrorists on its soil. What next, Immi?
