Pak Army claims clearing all areas of militants

From Sajjad Hussain Islamabad, Sep 1 (PTI) Pakistan Army today said it haskilled over 3,500 militants and claimed that the entirecountry has been cleared of "organised presence" ofterrorists. Military spokesman Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said at apress briefing that since launch of ‘Zarb-e-Azb’ militaryoperation against terrorists in June 2014, armed forces haveachieved "major successes" in the fight against terrorism. "I can say that there is no hideout of militants in anyarea of Pakistan as we have cleared all area of organisedpresence of militants," he said. "The salient operational guidelines for the operationwere that it would be an indiscriminate operation, collateraldamage would be avoided and human rights would be taken intoconsideration," Bajwa said. He said more than 3,500 militants have been killed sincethe operation was launched while 537 soldiers lost their livesand another 2,272 injured. "Terrorism was rampant in the country in 2014, which isbefore Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched, he said, adding thatthere were about 311 IED blasts, 74 attacks, and 26 suicideblasts." "There was enough explosive material there to carry outfive IED blasts every day for 21 years. They could have caused134,000 casualties with the amount of material we recovered,Bajwa added. He said more than 21,000 intelligence based operationswere conducted in the country and succeeded to break the nexusbetween militants, facilitators and financiers. "We have two challenges: first managing 2,600 km borderwith Afghanistan and honourable return of 3 million Afghanrefugees," he said. He said loopholes on the border will be plugged asgovernment will set up 18 regular crossing points where onlythose having proper documents will be allowed to cross. Bajwa said that Daesh has been smashed as its entire coreleadership of about 20-25 militants have been arrested,including Pakistan chief of Daesh, Hafiz Umar. He said total 309 supporters and operatives of Daesh(ISIS) were nabbed in countrywide operations. The threat ofISIS is now from Afghanistan where it is present in at leastthree border provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar and Khost. PTI SHAMS AKJAMS