Rawalpindi: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of Pakistan, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Kurram Agency Thursday to mark what ISPR (Inter Services Public Relation) termed as successful culmination of Operation Koh-e-Sufaid.
According to ISPR statement, the operation was launched under strong demand of local population and political administration of the area, against terrorists and miscreants involved in suicide bombings, sectarian killing, kidnapping for ransom and other extortions.
Clearance of Central Kurram will ensure opening of road Thal-Parachinar, and help create conditions for implementation of Murree Accord for long term peace in the Agency.
COAS also interacted with the troops at Mandan and Manato who displayed firm resolve and rendered supreme sacrifices to end the reign of terror in the area. He also lauded the efforts of Political Administration for efficiently managing around thirteen thousand displaced families.
It is relevant to recall here that army had launched Operation in Kurram Agency on July 4, 2011 Monday with an announcement by DG ISPR Athar Abbass.
According to security analysts the army has completed the operation in minimum possible time with least displacement of people. Earlier, they had described the agency as a black spot for the Pakistan army.
Before this operation people were forced travel through Afghanistan for getting to and from Parachinar, and there had been a lot of killings going on between the Sunnis and the Shia groups.
The analysts believe that Kurram was strategically important for Pakistan, the militants and the United States. It lies opposite Afghanistan’s Paktia, Nangarhar and Khost provinces and is next door to North Waziristan.
Parachinar is just over the mountains from Tora Bora, Afghanistan, which the US and Afghan forces assaulted after the September 11, 2001, attacks in pursuit of bin Laden.
Since bin Laden’s death, the TTP has carried out suicide bombings, assaulting a naval base in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, and deploying hundreds of fighters in large-scale attacks on security forces.
The US has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against militants since American Special Forces found and killed bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.
Washington had in particular pressed Pakistan to target the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, which has deployed a formidable fighting force in eastern Afghanistan.
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