WASHINGTON - In an effort to clear the air, Pakistan’s military spokesman told an American television network that Pakistani troops were fighting against all types of terrorists and their respective accomplices, pledging to eliminate the menace of terror totally from its soil.
“Pakistan is very clear, very determined. There are no good terrorists. There is no collusion. We are absolutely clear, no confusion in our mind. We are going against all terrorists without any discrimination of hue and colour,” Major General Asim Bajwa, the director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations told CNN.
“So I think there is no confusion in our mind that we have to go against the phenomenon of terrorism, against all terrorists, and their abettors,” he said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour.
Pakistan suffered the deadliest Taliban attack on its soil on December 16, which left 145 dead, most of them children, after gunmen opened fire in the Army Public School in Peshawar. Pupils and teachers returned to the school for the first time last week.
“There is a lot more security at the national level,” Bajwa said, adding that a review of security was taking place at every level.
“I think it is very difficult to guarantee that nothing of this kind happens anywhere in the world. We just saw what happened in Paris. We have seen school shootouts in places like America, which is the most developed democracy of the world and it’s a very good functioning system.”
Maj-Gen Bajwa maintained that Pakistan’s military is capable of combating terrorism. “However, if you see the nature of this conflict, you see the US forces in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, they’ve been there for so long, you look at the ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan] forces, the scale and magnitude of the forces and resources which are employed, and look at the performance of Pakistani forces, they have done an excellent job.”
“They have been so effective and we’ve achieved the desired results. And we are expanding it. We will go to the last terrorist and we will eliminate terrorism totally from our soil.”
Asked if Pakistan expected blowback as terrorists were being executed, he said “There is always a chance of blowback. So now that the military has been mandated, it has a sunset clause for two years. But there is also a criminal justice reform which is underway. So this military court is a stopgap arrangement which has now been given to the military for a period of two years.”