Attempts to reverse Zarb-i-Azb gains will be foiled: COAS
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ISLAMABAD: Chief of the Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif on Friday called for sustained efforts to defeat all hostile attempts to reverse the gains of Operation Zarb-i-Azb.
Recounting the successes of Zarb-i-Azb and the resultant stability being achieved to propel Pakistan into a new phase of development and prosperity, the army chief emphasised the need for effectively addressing the challenges to internal security.
He vowed to foil the attempts aimed at reversing the gains and said it was time to consolidate these gains and build upon what had already been achieved, an official told Dawn.
Expressing satisfaction over the operational preparedness of the troops, Gen Sharif reiterated the Pakistan Army’s resolve to defend the country’s geographical borders at all costs.
The COAS said this while chairing a corps commanders conference at the General Headquarters which held a comprehensive review of internal and external security situation with focus on the prevailing environment at the Line of Control (LoC) and operational preparedness of the army.
The conference was attended by all corps commanders and principal staff officers. The participants resolved to continue the sustained and focused combing and intelligence-based operations across the length and breadth of the country to uproot terrorism, harmonising it with the implementation of the National Action Plan to address extremism and other causes of terrorism.
They also vowed to defend the motherland against full spectrum of threat and warned the enemy that any misadventure would evoke a telling response. The official who talked to Dawn explained that full spectrum included direct and indirect, and conventional and unconventional threats.
Rejecting the absurd Indian claim of carrying out surgical strikes on this side of the LoC as an attempt to divert the world’s attention away from brutalities being committed by the Indian army against innocent people of held Kashmir, the forum resolved that any misadventure and irresponsible act would be met with the most befitting response.
It was stressed that had an attempt to carry out any surgical strike inside Pakistan been made, it would have been responded to in the same coin.
Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2016
