Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif this week clarified that the government’s new anti-terrorism operation will not be a large-scale military operation that would cause people to be displaced, amid growing opposition by Pakistani political parties who accuse authorities of not taking them into confidence on the matter.
Pakistan’s top national security forum on Saturday announced the Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, or Resolve for Stability, campaign after a meeting of the Central Apex Committee on the National Action Plan (NAP) that was attended by senior military leaders and top government officials from all provinces, including the PTI-backed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.
However, the PTI and Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), two key political parties in the militancy-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, have rejected the military operation. Leaders of both parties have called on the government to take lawmakers into confidence about the new operation.
In a statement released by his office on Monday night, Sharif said Operation Azm-e-Istehkam is being “misunderstood” and compared to previous military operations such as Operation Zarb-e-Azb and Operation Rah-e-Nijat. He said militants in these operations were killed for creating “no-go areas” in the country and for challenging the writ of the state, adding that they caused massive displacement of the population.
“There are currently no such no-go areas in the country as the ability of terrorist organizations to carry out large-scale organized operations inside Pakistan has been decisively defeated by past armed operations,” Sharif was quoted as saying.
