KARACHI: Former army chief retired General Raheel Sharif said on Tuesday that the last year witnessed a significant decrease in terrorism and that ‘intelligence sharing is a very important component of the strategy to combat terrorism”.

Addressing a session of the World Economic Forum titled “Terrorism in the Digital Age”, he said: “Terrorism is a global issue and the global community will have to unite if it wants to defeat terrorism.”

Talking about the achievement of the Pakistan Army in fighting terrorism, he said the military had cleared 8,000km area after recapturing it from militant control. He told the gathering that tens of thousands of affected people had been rehabilitated in the area.

Gen Sharif said terrorism had become “gangrene for the world” and added that nowadays terrorists attacked in a well planned manner. Pakistan had borne tragedies like the Army Public School attack because of terrorism, he said. “However, we cannot take negative measures against terrorists like they do.”

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2017