The National Security Committee will meet on Friday (today) to review counter-terrorism preparedness and chalk out a strategy in the wake of rising terrorist attacks.
\nThe decision to convene the meeting of the NSC was taken in a meeting between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Gen Asim Munir on Thursday.
\nThe meeting between the two took place a day after the corps commanders\u2019 conference at the General Headquarters where the surge in terrorism incidents dominated the agenda.
\nAn important element of the military\u2019s statement issued after the corps commanders\u2019 conference was that the terrorist threat would be eliminated \u201cas per the aspirations of the people of Pakistan\u201d.
\nThis showed that the army, with its readiness to act against terrorist groups, needed political ownership of any new counter-terrorism operation that may be launched.
\nThe coalition government, which has so far shied away from tough decisions, was, meanwhile, finding it difficult to commit to any large-scale kinetic operation amidst economic turmoil and ahead of impending elections next year.
\nHowever, it is expected that the military\u2019s advice would ultimately prevail in light of the urgency of the situation.
\nOver the past few months, the law and order situation in the country has worsened, with terrorist groups like the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the militant Islamic State group, and Gul Bahadur Group executing attacks with near impunity across the country.
\nInsurgents in Balochistan have also stepped up their violent activities and formalised a nexus with the TTP.
\nThe incident at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police\u2019s Counter-Terrorism Depart\u00adment interrogation centre in Bannu and the botched suicide bombing attempt in Islamabad not only set off alarm bells in the power corridors but also left several countries worried about the security of their nationals.
\nThe US, UK, Australia and Saudi Arabia have issued advisories, asking their nationals to restrict movements in Pakistan and avoid non-essential trips.
\nThe other issue the NSC will deliberate upon, according to reports, is the rise in cross-border attacks from Afghanistan.
\nThe Afghan Taliban have long seen Pakistan as their bridge to the international community, but they aren\u2019t ready to relent on the traditional Afghan position on the nearly 2600-km-long border separating the two countries.
\nThese differences in the status of the border have often led to military skirmishes with loss of lives on both sides.
\nForeign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, at the weekly media briefing on Thursday, talked about the border incidents with Afghanistan.
\n\u201cWe are engaged with Afghan authorities on issues related to security and border management. Afghanistan has given certain assurances and we hope the promises made will be honoured,\u201d she said without telling what assurances had been extended by Taliban authorities.
\nMeanwhile, on the advisories issued by some of the foreign missions, the spokesperson reassured that Pakistani security agencies were \u201cfully capable of and prepared\u201d to protect their citizens as well as foreign nationals residing here.
\n\u201cWe attach the highest importance to the safety and security of all foreign diplomatic missions in Islamabad, and have assured them of our full support and cooperation,\u201d she maintained, adding those trying to disrupt peace in the country \u201cwould be strictly dealt with by our law enforcement authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Security Committee will meet on Friday (today) to review counter-terrorism preparedness and chalk out a strategy in the wake of rising terrorist attacks….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3929,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}