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Today's Paper | December 22, 2024

Updated 24 Jun, 2017 01:25am

Recent terror attacks linked to sanctuaries across border: ISPR

The army's media wing announced that security and surveillance of the Pak-Afghan border had been intensified after two separate terror attacks in Quetta and Kurram Agency on Friday, which Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) attributed to 'sanctuaries' across the border.

Director General (DG) ISPR Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor made the announcement after a suicide attack in Quetta killed 13, twin blasts in Kurram Agency's Parachinar area killed at least 30 people, and a gun attack targeting police officials in Karachi left four policemen dead.

The DG ISPR said: "Recent terrorist incidents linked to sanctuaries across [the Pak-Afghan border]."

"Stringent action" will be taken against "illegal border-crossers", he asserted.

Earlier, the DG ISPR, quoting Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, said that security would be tightened and search operations carried out across the country after the attacks.

"Security tightened across the country. Special Intelligence Based Operations and search operations launched in coordination with intelligence and other law enforcement agencies," he said.

The COAS, as quoted by the ISPR, said that in the run-up to the Eid holidays, the "enemy [is] trying to mar [the] festive mood of [the] nation through such coward acts".

He added that the "enemy... shall fail against [the] resilience of Pakistan."

Earlier this week, Pakistan at the United Nations Security Council said that terrorist "safe havens" are inside, not outside, Afghanistan.

Explore: Pakistan, Afghan envoys in US trade barbs at Washington moot

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Afghan President Ashraf Ghani accused Pakistan of waging an "undeclared war of aggression" against Afghanistan.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long accused each other of turning a blind eye to militants operating along their porous border.

Operation Raddul Fasaad

The Pakistan Army had launched Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad earlier this year following a spate of terror attacks in the country, which claimed more than a hundred lives and left hundreds of others injured.

The operation seeks to eliminate the "residual/latent threat of terrorism", consolidating the gains made in other military operations, and further ensuring the security of Pakistan's borders.

Hundreds of suspected terrorists have reportedly either been killed or arrested in raids carried out by security personnel since the start of the operation.

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