“Strike hard enough to blow up Nawaz Sharif’s home,”
–Zarawar Zahid, Nangarhar Province police chief – June 2016.
The border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan stretches back to 1893, when the British civil servant Sir Mortimer Durand, agreed on the boundary along the present border with Abdur Rehman Khan, the Afghan Amir of the day. The biggest problem with this man-made border is that people on both sides both sides are essentially the same. Their ethnicity, traditions and in many cases even families do not look at the border as a valid boundary. The constant to and fro makes it nigh impossible for both governments to monitor all the movement, unless fences and gates are constructed around the key crossings. At the moment, the Afghan government claims that they were not informed, even though this the Pakistan government denies. If that is the case, the Afghan government’s protests and subsequent barrage of fire does not have a leg to stand on.