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Taliban not military outfit but normal civilians: Pak PM Imran Khan

Taliban not military outfit but normal civilians: Pak PM Imran Khan

TIL Desk/World/Islamabad/ In a controversial statement, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the Taliban are not some military outfit but normal citizens. Khan also asked how Pakistan was supposed to hunt down Afghans when the country had nearly three million Afghan refugees at its borders who shared the same ethnic group as the Taliban, according to reports.

Khan was responding to questions during an interview aired on Tuesday night in which he stressed that a majority of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan were Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as Taliban militants. Khan’s comments came in response to criticism of Pakistan being a haven for Taliban militants in wake of the United States’ exit from Afghanistan.

In April, a former top US military official had said that the Afghan Taliban have had sanctuary in Pakistan and the terror group originated from the madrassas in that country. “… Taliban are not some military outfits, they are normal civilians. And if there are some civilians in these camps, how is Pakistan supposed to hunt these people down? How can you call them sanctuaries?” Khan argued, as quoted by reports.

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