ISLAMABAD/QUETTA / PESHAWAR: In a late-night move, the government clarified that the campaign to be launched under the banner of Azm-i-Istehkam would not be a kinetic large-scale military operation, nor would it entail the mass displacement of the local population.
The clarification came apparently in the wake of intense opposition criticism of the government’s plans to launch military action, ostensibly to safeguard against the rising threat of terrorist violence, without consulting parliament.
The plans for a reinvigorated and re-energised national counter-terrorism campaign, which were announced on Saturday, entailed augmenting the kinetic efforts of the armed forces with support from all law enforcement agencies, as well as effective legislation to address legal voids that hinder effective prosecution of terrorism-related cases.
But this was met by full throated criticism from opposition parties, including the PTI, JUI-Fazl and ANP — both inside parliament and outside — with the KP chief minister even denying that any such thing was discussed with him during the apex committee meeting last week.
In an apparent response to these misgivings, the statement issued by the PM Office pointed out that “previous kinetic operations were conducted to physically dislodge terrorists from their known locations which [became] no-go areas and compromised the writ of the state. These operations required mass displacement of the local population and systematic clearance of affected areas”.
As there are no such areas in the country any more and terrorists’ ability to carry out large-scale organised operations inside Pakistan had been “decisively degraded by earlier kinetic operations… no large-scale military operation is being contemplated where displacement of population will be required,” the statement said.
Azm-i-Istehkam was a “multi-domain, multi-agency, whole of the system national vision” for enduring stability in Pakistan, it said.
“It is meant to reinvigorate and re-energise the ongoing implementation of Revised National Action Plan, which was initiated after the national consensus across the political spectrum,” the statement said, adding that the proposed operation would “energise” intelligence-based operations to “decisively root out” terrorists, the crime-terror nexus, and violent extremism.
