Amid accusations of Operation Azm-i-Istehkam (Resolve for Stability) displacing residents from the insurgency-hit areas of Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a top Pakistan Army general on Monday slammed the "organised propaganda" being run against the country's military. It is not a military operation, he stated.
"Why is Azm-e-Istehkam being made controversial? There's a strong lobby, which wants the objectives of the Operation not to be fulfilled. It is being politicised," Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif told reporters during a press conference in Rawalpindi. "Why did a mafia, political mafia, and an illegal mafia say that they would not let this [campaign] happen?"
The prime objective of counter-insurgency operation is to prevent the threat of terrorism from escalating inside Pakistan amid increasing attacks, which Islamabad has repeatedly blamed on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP*) fighters hiding in Afghanistan for carrying out.
Last week, a terror attack on a military base in the garrison town of Bannu in the Islamic sovereign state killed eight Pakistani troops, with Islamabad once again reiterating its call to Kabul for action against the outlawed TTP terrorists.
Against this backdrop, Sharif noted that Pakistan's Armed Forces were conducting over 112 operations on a daily basis.
"During these operations, 31 high-value targets have been killed. This year 137 officers and soldiers laid their lives in the operations," the chief of the Pakistan military's media wing revealed.
*A banned terrorist organization.