Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif has said that the army has made considerable gains in operations against terrorists and “we have reached close to our objective of total elimination of terrorism from our soil”.

“We will give a secure and prosperous Pakistan to our future generations,” he said during his visit to North and South Waziristan on Tuesday. The army chief was given a briefing on the progress of stabilisation operations, return of the temporarily dislocated persons (TDPs) and development work in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the COAS expressed satisfaction on the progress of return of the TDPs and commended the efforts of everyone involved in ensuring their smooth and timely return with dignity and honour.

He directed them to complete the return of the remaining TDPs within the stipulated time before the close of the year 2016. As part of a comprehensive rehab and reconstruction effort, significant rehab projects were commissioned on Tuesday. The day also marked the opening of an 84-kilometre-long Bannu-Miranshah-Ghulam Khan Road funded by the USAID and constructed by Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).

This would become the shortest trade route to Afghanistan wherein travelling time between Bannu and Ghulam Khan border post will reduce from existing six hours to 90 minutes. With this road, the 705km-long strategic central trade corridor to Afghanistan had been completed for all kind of movement across the border up to Central Asia.

The COAS also inaugurated the state-of-the-art Younus Khan sports stadium with a packed crowd of viewers watching an inaugural match played between FATA Eleven and Younas Khan Eleven. The army chief hoped that enormous talent of FATA youth would be honed with upcoming educational and sports facilities, and with no dearth of talent, their aspirations to rise at the international level would be accomplished. While addressing a traditional meeting of tribal elders, General Raheel Sharif said that Operation Zarb-e-Azb had irreversibly eradicated the terrorist networks from FATA.