PESHAWAR, Nov 11: The Pakistan government has formally allowed Afghanistan’s Eastern Zone Shoora, an anti-Taliban alliance, to open its office in Peshawar.

The Peshawar office will make liaison with the former Jihadi commanders and splinter groups of the four eastern provinces of Afghanistan, who have devised a strategy to open military front against the ruling Taliban from the eastern side, a former Afghan Jihadi commander told Dawn on Sunday.

Bringing a complete shift in its Afghan policy, Islamabad has asked the Kabul, some days ago, to close its Karachi consulate forthwith. Taliban ambassador had been stopped from holding his daily briefing in Islamabad.

The Eastern Zone Shoora, a pro-Shah conglomerate, has set up its office in the posh University Town area of Peshawar, which is being managed by the former Jihadi commanders and warlords, who had faced up deportation in the past or opted for hiding inside Pakistan.

The shoora comprises four eastern provinces, Nooristan, Kunar, Nangarhar and Laghman, a Pakhtoon-dominated belt bordering tribal areas of Pakistan.

Haji Mohammad Zaman Ghamsharik, a key figure of the Eastern Zone Shoora, also deported by Pakistan authorities in 1997 to a European country, told Dawn that the Shoora would streamline its political and military activities through the liaison office.

He said that the Afghan opposition had been without a formal place in Pakistan to be used as converging point for opposition forces. “Now this office will help them a lot to discuss the future line of action against the Taliban regime.

He confirmed report about a bid to raise national army for Afghanistan, saying that former chief of army staff, Abdur Rahim Wardak, was working out a plan to set up a uniform force to take control of Kabul and other major cities after the fall of the Taliban regime.

“We have strong fighters who are ready to launch offensive against the Taliban from the eastern front, but they could not move with empty hands,” he said, adding that their forces needed military hardware.