Terror activity flowing out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will be firmly dealt with: General Bipin Rawat

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat on August 25 said at an event held in Delhi that any possible terrorist activity flowing out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and finding its way into India will be firmly dealt with.

He said: “We were concerned about how terrorist activity from Afghanistan could overflow into India and so to that extent our contingency planning had been ongoing and we are prepared for that.”

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Speaking at an Observer Research Foundation (ORF) event on ‘The India-US Partnership: Securing the 21st Century’, General Rawat said: “Everything that has happened was something that had been anticipated, only the timelines have changed. From the Indian perspective, we were anticipating the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.”

He added: “The timeline surprised us because we were anticipating this happening maybe a couple of months down the line. But it is pretty much the same -- same Taliban that was there 20 years ago."

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The Chief of Defence Staff further said that “news reports and news from expats who have come from there are all telling us the kind of activities that Taliban are into. All that has happened is that the partners have now changed. It is the same Taliban with different partners”.