KABUL - Afghanistan banned all Pakistani newspapers from entering the country on Friday in an attempt to block the Taliban from influencing public opinion via the press, reported Fox News on Friday, quoting an American news agency.
The order, issued by the Ministry of Interior, adds to the mounting tension between the neighboring countries.
It focuses specifically on blocking entry of the papers at Torkham, a busy border crossing, and directed border police to gather up Pakistani newspapers in the three eastern provinces of Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan. In a statement, the ministry said the newspapers were a conduit for Taliban propaganda. “The news is not based on reality and it is creating concerns for our countrymen in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Also, the newspapers are a propaganda resource of the Taliban spokesmen.”
Many Pakistani Taliban fighters have fled to Kunar and surrounding areas after Pakistan’s army pushed them out of its tribal region, taking advantage of the US military’s withdrawal of most of its forces from these Afghan border provinces in recent years.
Separately in Afghanistan, five civilians were killed and eight others were wounded Friday in Naway district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, according to district police chief Ahmad Shah Khan Pupal. Two children and three men were among the dead.
Nato reported that a service member with the international military alliance in Afghanistan died Friday morning of a non-battle injury in the south. Nato did not provide details about the death or the nationality of the service member who died.