ISLAMABAD: An Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement tweet announced the launch of an operation along the Pak-Afghan border on Tuesday.
The operation would be conducted by the Pakistan Army in the Rajgal valley, located in northern Tirah in Khyber Agency. The ISPR statement said that the operation was intended “to reinforce troop deployment in Rajgal valley to effectively check and guard against” movement across the porous border in Khyber Agency.
The operation would target the “movement on high mountains and all-weather passes in Khyber Agency,” the statement added. The cross-border movements of militants both ways had been a major area of concern despite heavy military presence on both sides of the border.
The Bacha Khan University Attack investigation highlighted the fact that the mastermind of the attack, the planners and handlers had used the Afghan soil and telecommunication network for executing the deadly attack.
An Operation has been launched along Pak-Afghan border to reinforce troops deployment in Rajgal valley to… https://t.co/Z5EBufsO0I
— ISPR (@ISPR_Official) August 16, 2016
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The Pakistani government had also been under persistent pressure from the military to accelerate the necessary steps required for effective execution of its counterterrorism strategy, National Action Plan (NAP). It is a policy that was agreed by consensus by all political parties after the December 2014 Army Public School Peshawar tragedy.
An ISPR statement released on Friday said that Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif had warned that lack of progress on NAP was affecting the consolidation phase of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Earlier, Pakistan had opened a gate at Torkham, which is one of the busiest crossing points between the two countries and is used by 15,000-20,000 people and hundreds of vehicles daily.
Clashes also broke out between Pakistani and Afghan security forces over the construction of the border gate and left four soldiers dead on both sides, including Pakistani Frontier Corp’s Major Ali Jawad Changezi. This gate’s construction started in 2014 but Afghan reservations over border regulation kept causing delays.
Pakistan also completed a 500-kilometre long trench along the porous border further south in Balochistan, to stop the movement of smugglers, militants and other anti-social elements.
