ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s president has warned that the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan has created conditions “similar to or worse than” those before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a sign of rising tensions with Kabul after last week’s mosque attack in Islamabad, which analysts said Monday highlights militants’ reach to the capital.
Asif Ali Zardari made the remarks while thanking the international community for condemning Friday’s suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 31 worshippers and wounded 169. Without directly blaming India, Zardari also said Pakistan’s eastern neighbor was “assisting the Taliban regime and threatening not only Pakistan but regional and global peace.”
In a statement issued Sunday, Zardari said Pakistan “takes strong exception to the situation in Afghanistan where the Taliban regime has created conditions similar to or worse than pre-9/11, when terror organizations posed threats to global peace.” He added that Pakistan had long maintained terrorism cannot be confronted by any single country in isolation.
The unusually strong comments were likely to irk Kabul and New Delhi, both of which have condemned the suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State group and have denied any involvement.
The previous Afghan Taliban government, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, had been blamed for sheltering the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden who was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in the United …