PESHAWAR: The military declared on Wednesday that important areas had been cleared of terrorists and operation Zar-i-Azb was progressing successfully in North Waziristan Agency.

Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Asim Bajwa said at a press conference here that Mirali, Miramshah, Razmak and Ghulam Khan had been cleared of Taliban, while a battle was on to take control of areas beyond Dattakhel.

He said about 1,100 militants had been killed during Zar-i-Azb and 44 in the Khyber-I operation. “One hundred militants have surrendered to the forces,” he said.

The spokesman didn’t give a deadline for completing the operations that are under way in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency and said the military campaigns would continue till clearance of the areas.

Maj Gen Bajwa also didn’t give a date for the return of the people displaced from both tribal regions and said the army would hand over the areas to the administration after defeating terrorists.

He said Chief of Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif wanted to send the displaced people to their homes at the earliest.

The military spokesman said special explosive ordnance disposal units had been set up to destroy the seized explosives.

He said the army had been trying to share maximum information with the people, but there were a lot of details retrieved from the arrested suspects which could not be disclosed.

The spokesman said about 2,500 raids had been carried out in collaboration with the intelligence agencies during the Zar-i-Azb, Khyber- I and Karachi operations.

He said the political leadership was responsible for the dialogue process.

The crime rate in Peshawar had decreased after launching of the Khyber-I operation, he said.

Gen Bajwa said the situation in Swat had improved and tourism had resumed in the region. About 10,000 vehicles visited Swat for tourism annually, he said.

Gen Bajwa said that the army’s assistance had been sought to provide security in 134 sensitive areas of the country during Muharram.

INDIAN AGGRESSION: Although the attention of the armed forces was divided because of aggression by Indian forces on the eastern front, the military was capable of giving an appropriate response and despite tension on the border with India the deployment of troops in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas would not be reduced, he said.

AFGHAN ROLE: Maj Gen Bajwa said the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Nato and the Afghan government had been informed about the operation, but the Afghan side had not shown any support. Leaders of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were in Afghanistan and operated from there.

About the use of Afghan mobile phone subscriber identification modules (SIMs) by militants in criminal and terrorist activities, he said signals of the neighbouring country’s telecommunication companies were effective in Pakistani territory across the border, which was dangerous.

He said the Afghan authorities were required to carry out work in this regard and certain mobile phone signal towers situated near the border would have to be relocated.

According to AFP, the ISPR chief said TTP chief Fazlullah was “operating freely” from the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. The Afghans had refused to act on requests for help in this regard, he said.

“We did not get cooperation from Afghanistan that we were expecting before launching the Zarb-i-Azb operation. We had asked them to dislodge the terrorists, intercept them, kill them or hand them over to us, but they (Afghans) were not forthcoming in this cooperation.”

He said 100 soldiers had also been killed during the operation.

It is difficult to independently verify the numbers because journalists do not have regular access to the conflict zones.

Maj Gen Bajwa complained that Afghan inaction was undermining the operation and the military was concerned at militants “roaming freely” over the border.

“Had we received the cooperation of Afghanistan, the effect of the operation would have been much better,” he said.

According to APP, the military spokesman said operation Khyber-I had been launched to contain the activities of terrorists fleeing North Waziristan and stop their spillover into the neighbouring Khyber Agency, where their regrouping was possible.

When asked about a jirga reportedly formed for talks with the Sajna militant group, he said he had no knowledge about the jirga at the official level and the operation would continue unabated without any discrimination.

“We have taken the reports of incidents of targeted killing in Swat very seriously and action will be taken against those responsible,” he said.

In reply to a question about incidents of firing on aeroplanes around the Peshawar airport, he said certain gangs had been nabbed and were being investigated.

He said a comprehensive resettlement plan for the people displaced from North Waziristan had been prepared.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2014