Kabul trained Baloch, Pushtoon youth in 1970s: ex-ANP leader

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Kabul trained Baloch, Pushtoon youth in 1970s: ex-ANP leader

PESHAWAR: The Kabul regime had arranged for “military training” for Pushtoons and young Baloch men who were sent by the Awami National Party and other Baloch political forces in the 1970s, a Pushtoon leader told an Afghan TV channel on Sunday.

“These trainings were not non-violent,” said Sufi Juma Khan, who lived in exile in Afghanistan from early 1970 until 1989, when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto announced an amnesty for all those who had left the country to escape persecution at the hands of Gen Ziaul Haq.

This is the first confession by a former ANP worker that Afghanistan was involved in “destabilising” Pakistan using Pushtoon and Baloch dissidents.

He said the Afghan government had offered military training to the dissidents, adding that the first batch was trained in 1974. He said that the late ANP leader, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, had participated in the passing-out parade.

Juma Khan, who recently left the ANP due to disputes over policy matters, did not say where the training camps had been set up or how long they had remained active. “We had gone there for training first, we took the initiative,” Juma said.