Afghan nationals in Pakistan were also serving in army: Khawaja Asif

• Asif says he signed 2-3 files to expel Afghans serving in army.
• "These also included a captain and a lieutenant," minister says.
• He adds "we don't want to set any new rules with Afghanistan".

ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif revealed that Afghan nationals living in Pakistan had managed to join the army have been dismissed from theirposts, The News reported Wednesday.

The minister made these claims while speaking during an interview with a local media channel.

Asif, during the interview, said that during hisprevious stint as the defence minister, he hadsigned two or three files to expel Afghan citizens who were serving in the army.

While referring to the ranks of the officers who were serving in the army at the time, Asif said that these also included acaptain and a lieutenant.

"This happened about two to three years ago after which they were disposed of," he added.

In a statement, Asif said that terrorists were currently living in the Afghan territory, except for those 3,000-4,000 which were brought by the the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder from Afghanistan.

He added that in this regard, a briefing was alsogiven to the National Assembly and after that, no one came at a state level.

“We do not want to set any new rules with Afghanistan, but we should break clean with the past 30-40 years as we cannot afford it," he added.

The defence minister said that former army chief General (retd)Qamar Javed Bajwa, former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) head Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed and PTI founder should be answerable to parliament on bringing back Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), economic destruction and sacking Nawaz Sharif.