and trade, needs an outlet to the sea, which is very essential", in an interview with the Statesman. In 1949, Pakistan Air Force bombed the Afghan sponsored militant camps in border areas including an Afghan village to curb an unrest led by Ipi Faqir propagating independent Pashtunistan. Border clashes were reported in 1949–50 for the first time. On 30 September 1950, Pakistan claimed that Afghan troops and tribesmen had crossed into Pakistan's Balochistan, but the low-scale invasion was repelled after six days of fighting. The Afghan government denied its involvement and claimed that they were pro-Pashtunistan Pashtun tribesmen. Tensions soared with the Pakistani One Unit program, and both countries withdrew ambassadors and diplomatic staff in 1955. The Pakistani Embassy in Kabul and consulates in Kandhar and Jalalabad were attacked by mobs. In 1960, major skirmishes broke with the Afghan Forces massing out on the Afghan side of the border with tanks. These skirmishes saw the Pakistan Air Force bombarding Afghan forces. This bombardment led to a brief hiatus in the skirmishes. On 6 September 1961, Kabul formally severed diplomatic relations with Pakistan. In 1950 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom held its view on the Afghan-Pakistan dispute over the Durand Line by stating: At the 1956 SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) Ministerial Council Meeting held at Karachi, capital of Pakistan at the time, it was stated: The Afghan government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. The 1979 Soviet–Afghan War forced millions of Afghans to take refuge inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials feared that the Soviet Union began some kind of military show down and that Pakistan or at least its Balochistan province was next on the Soviet agenda. During the early 1980s, multi-national mujahideen forces (consisting of about 100,000 fighters from forty different Muslim countries in addition to 150,000 local fighters) found support from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran in the context of the Cold War. They were trained by Pakistani military in its frontier region around the Durand Line. The Soviet Union decided to withdraw in 1989 and when aid dried up on Afghanistan in 1992, a civil war began. This was followed by the rise and fall of the Taliban government. Since late 2001, as high as 140,000 NATO-led troops