Pakistan turns tables on terrorists

[Dawood Ibrahim]

Pakistan has finally turned the tables on terrorists after losing thousands of lives in its war against local and foreign militants.

Islamabad’s security problems may be far from over, but according to a foreign magazine “something extraordinary and unexpected has certainly happened” in Pakistan, with violence dropping by three quarters in the last two years.

According to a report titled Pakistan is winning its war on terror published in The Spectator, Pakistan is much safer than at any point since US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The magazine, however, gives the credit for this extra ordinary achievement by the nuclear armed nation to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

According to to the report it all began when Sharif decided to put an end to political tolerance of violence by giving Rangers “unlimited powers’ during a cabinet meeting in Karachi in September 2013.

Six months later, the report claimed, Sharif decided to send army into North Waziristan as part of country’s war against militancy.

The military offensive in North Waziristan, however, was launched after a spectacular militant attack at Karachi’s Jinnah Inter-National Airport in June 2014, at least nine months after the cabinet meeting in Karachi.

It said Nawaz Sharif initially wanted to bring the Taliban militants to negotiating table but eventually yielded to advice from generals to send army into North Waziristan, the hot bed of militancy near Afghan border.

Karachi operation, military offensive in North Waziristan, National Action Plan, an end to moratorium on capital punishment and establishment of military courts were the factors that led to decrease in violence across the country, according to the report.

The army has killed around 3,500 militants , destroyed 992 hideouts and cleared 3,600 square kilometres of territory, with 500 soldiers falling in the battle.

The magazine also interviewed then Director General of Sindh Rangers and currently serving as the Chief of Staff at General Headquarters Bilal Akbar. He shared the number of killings that have been taking place in Karachi before and after the drive against criminal elements was launched. The details shared by the general show a significant drop in violence in the metropolis of Karachi.

He said: "In 2013 there were 2,789 killings in Karachi. In the first 11 months of 2016 there were 592. In 2013 there were 51 terrorist bomb blasts. Up to late November this year, there were two.

Three years ago, Karachi suffered from an orgy of kidnapping for ransom. There were 78 cases in 2013, rising to 110 the following year. This year, there have been 19.

Some 533 extortion cases were reported in 2013; in 2016, only 133. Sectarian killing is sharply down: while 38 members of the Shia minority (who are brutally targeted in Pakistan) were killed in 2013, that figure was down by two thirds in 2016".

Major-General Bilal said the Rangers arrested 919 target killers from the militant wings of political parties since September 2013.


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