Azm-e-Istehkam nothing like previous military operations, clarifies PMO

ISLAMABAD: In a late-night move, the Prime Minister’s Office clarified that Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, announced recently for sustainable peace and stability, is being misunderstood.

The clarification came apparently in the wake of intense opposition criticism of the government’s plans to launch military action, demanding that parliament must be taken into confidence before taking any such decision.

“The recently announced vision for enduring stability named Azm-e-Istehkam is being erroneously misunderstood and compared with earlier launched kinetic operations like Zarb-e-Azab, Rah-e-Najaat etc,” read a statement issued by the PMO.

“These past operations required large-scale displacement of local populations and a complete eradication of terrorism from affected areas,” the statement read. “Currently, there are no such no-go areas in the country.”

The government stated that there are no such no-go areas in the country since the ability of terrorist entities to carry out large-scale organised operations inside Pakistan was decisively degraded by earlier kinetic operations.

“Therefore, no large-scale military operation is being contemplated where displacement of population will be required,” the PMO said.

Azm-e-Istehkam was a “multi-domain, multi-agency, whole of the system national vision” for enduring stability in Pakistan, it said.

“It is meant to reinvigorate and re-energise the ongoing implementation of Revised National Action Plan, which was initiated after the national consensus across the political spectrum,” the statement said, adding that the proposed operation would “energise” intelligence-based operations to “decisively root out” terrorists, the crime-terror nexus, and violent extremism.