CHIEF of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa on completion of five years of Operation Radd-ul-Fassad (RuF) on Tuesday said that the achievements have been possible due to the blood of martyrs and the resilience of people.
He said the RuF launched on February 22, 2017, was aimed at consolidating gains of two-decade long war on terror and eliminating remnants of terrorists across the country.
As has been highlighted by Director-General, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major-General Babar Iftikhar, the strategic intent of RuF was and is a peaceful, stable and normalized Pakistan where people’s confidence in the state is restored and terrorists are rendered completely ineffective by curtailing their freedom of action.
Judged on this yardstick, the Raddul Fasad has definitely been a remarkable success as the defence forces were able to realize almost all targets of the operation, leading to near normalcy in the otherwise active hotspots of terrorism and extremism.
All this became possible due to meticulous planning, deft execution, commitment and sacrifices of all those involved in the mission to improve security of the motherland.
The achievements are particularly impressive in view of the fact that our defence forces face resource constraints.
In the case of neighbouring Afghanistan, the world’s most resourceful powers could not stem the problem despite use of all available resources and modern weapons and equipment.
It is also a fact that intelligence agencies, police force and opinion-makers including Ulema have also contributed their share in making the operation a success.
The war against terror is a national endeavour and opinion-makers representing various walks of life as well as all segments of the society extended their fullest possible cooperation to break the back of terrorists and counter extremist tendencies on a long-term basis.
The border management was also an important element of RuF and it is satisfying that so far 95 per cent of Pak-Afghan and 78 per cent of Pakistan-Iran borders have been fenced.
Around 650 border forts and posts have also been established at two borders which will surely go a long way in keeping an effective check on illegal cross-border movement and smuggling which is hurting badly the national economy.
There are, of late, some problems in the execution of the project as the Taliban Government has adopted a hostile attitude against the project due to lopsided thinking and vision but it is hoped that the differences would be overcome and the projects completed and maintained because of its potential to help promote peace and security of the two countries.
We have repeatedly been maintaining in these columns that the our forces have done their job well by clearing problem areas but the pace of consolidation of the gains on the part of the civil administration is not matching.
Appreciably, the planners are not oblivious to this requirement and under an extensive programme, capacity enhancement of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), as many as 67 new wings of Frontier Corps were created while Pak Army also imparted training to 40,000 personnel of police and 22,000 troops of Levies and Khasadars.
It is also need of the hour that the federal and provincial governments should accelerate the pace of socio-economic development in the concerned regions as this is the best strategy to address the problem of extremism and terrorism on a sustainable basis.
