Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The army’s media wing has announced that security would be tightened and search operations carried out across country in run-up to Eid following a series of terror attacks and incidents of target killings in various parts of the country on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of ramazan.

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor made the announcement after a suicide attack in Quetta killed 13 people; twin blasts in Kurram Agency’s Parachinar area killed at least 25 people and two gun attacks targeting police officials in Karachi left four policemen dead and two others injured. “Security tightened across the country. Special Intelligence Based Operations and search operations launched in coordination with intelligence and other law enforcement agencies,” he said, quoting Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The COAS, as quoted by the ISPR, said that in the run-up to the Eid holidays, the “enemy [is] trying to mar [the] festive mood of [the] nation through such coward acts”.

He added that the ‘enemy’ “shall fail against [the] resilience of Pakistan.

Pakistan Army had launched Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad earlier this year following a spate of terror attacks in the country, which claimed more than hundred lives and left hundreds of others injured.

The operation seeks to eliminate the ‘residual/latent threat of terrorism’, consolidating the gains made in other military operations and further ensuring the security of Pakistan’s borders.

Published in Daily Times, June 24th, 2017.