According to Pakistan’s national security committee, the nation will begin a new nationwide operation to hunt for terrorists and militants. This might be a costly move for a nation that is already dealing with severe economic and political issues.
According to a statement released by the security committee on Friday, “the meeting agreed to launch an all-out, comprehensive operation with the entire nation and the government, which will rid the country of the threat of terrorism with renewed vigor and determination.”
According to one expert, the operation would also provide the government a justification to postpone the provincial elections that it had been under pressure to hold the following month.
Pakistan is in danger of defaulting on its debt, with an International Monetary Fund bailout programme stalled since November, while a bruising political battle is raging between the government and former prime minister Imran Khan.
The last time it launched an all-out operation against militants was in 2014, and it cost the country billions of dollars and resulted over a million people being displaced and hundreds being killed.
Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country of over 220 million people, has seen a rise in attacks by militants in the last few months, particularly since negotiations with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [or TTP] terror group broke down last year.
This year, the group and its factions have unleashed a wave of attacks including a suicide bombing at a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed over 100 people, mostly policemen.
The security committee said it held a meeting on Friday chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by the country’s military leadership, and formed a committee to make recommendations regarding the details of the anti-terror operations within two weeks.
The meeting was summoned by Sharif a day after he and his allies held a parliamentary vote to reject a Supreme Court order to hold provincial polls next month.
The government has maintained that the worsening security situation means the provincial elections would have to be delayed.
