ISLAMABAD: The government was reminded on Monday that progress on the National Action Plan (NAP) on counter-terrorism continued to be marred by inadequate effort to implement some of its key elements.

This emerged from a meeting convened by the government to review the progress on NAP, which was announced last December by the government with the consensus of all major political parties in the aftermath of the Army Public School, Peshawar, tragedy.

The meeting, presided over by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was attended by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, National Security Adviser Nasser Janjua, Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif, Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Zubair Hayat and other senior civil and military officials.

Also read: Progress on NAP found far from satisfactory

In a brief statement on the meeting, the Prime Minister’s Office said: “Issues of national security were discussed. Different stages of National Action Plan were reviewed.”

A government source said that the focus of the meeting remained on the areas where the progress was sluggish.

Poor performing elements include action against terror financing, foreign funding of seminaries

Some of the elements of NAP that have long been identified as poor performing include action against terror financing; foreign funding of seminaries; proscribed organisations and sectarian groups; hate speeches; and madressah reforms. The provincial mechanism for civil-military coordination on security issues too has been experiencing difficulties.

The source said that the same areas continued to remain source of concern.

Despite these issues having been flagged on multiple occasions, the government is struggling to tackle the problematic areas.

Resurgence of sectarianism in different parts of the country was also noted during the meeting.

Another source, when asked about the assessment of the progress by the meeting, said: “Unfortunately Zarb-i-Azb and associated intelligence-based operations were not being fully complemented by other components of the 20-point National Action Plan.”

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2015