Karachi city, Pakistan
Pakistan announced on Saturday that it was launching a “revitalized” national counter-terrorism operation to “eliminate extremism and terrorism from the country.”
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, Prime Minister Sharif made the announcement while presiding over a meeting of the country’s top anti-terrorism agencies in the capital, Islamabad.
The meeting was attended by the three army chiefs as well as chief ministers of four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan.
“The Prime Minister, with the consent of all stakeholders including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, launched Operation Azm-e-Isteqam (Resolve to Sustain) and approved a revitalised and revitalised national counter-terrorism campaign symbolising the nation’s resolve to eradicate extremism and terrorism from the country,” the statement added.
The campaign will integrate and synergize multiple efforts to comprehensively and decisively counter the threat of extremism and terrorism.
“The renewed full-scale campaign by the armed forces will be reinforced with the full support of all law enforcement agencies empowered by effective legislation to address the legal vacuum that hinders effective prosecution of terrorism-related cases and award of punishment,” the statement added.
The operation comes amid an intensifying wave of terrorism that has primarily targeted security forces in the northwestern and southwestern provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in recent years.
Pakistan recorded 1,524 violence-related deaths and 1,463 injuries in 789 terror attacks and counter-terrorism operations in 2023, the highest in six years, according to an annual security report published by the Centre for Research and Security Studies.
Safety of Chinese Nationals in Pakistan
On the political and diplomatic front, the meeting resolved to intensify efforts to reduce the space for terrorists to operate through regional cooperation.
The forum also discussed measures to ensure the “perfect” safety of Chinese citizens in the country.
Following the Prime Minister’s approval, new standard operating procedures (SOPs) will be issued to the departments concerned, strengthening mechanisms for providing comprehensive security to Chinese nationals in Pakistan.
The move came a day after Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, visited Pakistan and urged Islamabad to step up security for Chinese nationals working on the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
His remarks were a reference to several attacks against Chinese people across Pakistan in the past few years.
The $65 billion CPEC aims to link China’s strategically important northwestern Xinjiang region with Pakistan’s southern port of Gwadar through a network of roads, rail and pipelines to transport cargo, oil and gas.
To combat the menace of terrorism, Pakistan has launched two operations called Operation Raddul Fasad and Operation Zarb-e-Azb since 2014. The latest operation is a revitalized counter-terrorism effort and has been named Operation Azm-e-Istekam.
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