ISLAMABAD: Daesh network, well before it could get established in Pakistan, has been seriously dented by a recent joint operation of civilian and military intelligence agencies, it is learnt.
Sources said that dozens of Daesh activists have been arrested from different parts of the country during the recent weeks and months in a major crackdown, which is believed to have seriously dented Daesh before it becomes a serious challenge for Pakistan.
Although the US President Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in their recent statements named Pakistan as one of the major focus of Daesh activities, the authorities here strongly deny this and claim that Daesh has not been allowed to organise in Pakistan.
Daesh has been involved in several terrorist activities in different countries of Europe and Middle East but not in Pakistan.
In Safoora massacre, Daesh is said to have a link but it could not execute any terrorist activity for having lose and weak network.
The sources said that Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence had major role in dismantling the Daesh network before it could get organised in Pakistan.
For the same reason, it is said that interior minister as well as the foreign office keep on insisting that there is no organised presence of Daesh in Pakistan.
Chief of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Aftab Sultan on Wednesday was quoted as telling the Senate Committee for Interior that the network of Daesh (which also calls itself Islamic State) has been dismantled in Pakistan.
He was also quoted to have said that the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba support Daesh in Pakistan.
Media finds a contradiction between the statements of the Foreign Office and the IB chief but the security agencies sources also insist that Daesh has no organised presence in Pakistan and that dozens of its men have been arrested before they could get their network in place.
The security agencies’ sources claim that the on-going civil-military operation — led by Zarb-e-Azb — against terrorists has extremely weakened the TTP and other terrorist groups.
While Pakistan has done extra-ordinarily well to check terrorism and terrorist networks including TTP, LeJ and others, President Barack Obama’s recent statement was taken as offensive by the local authorities where he said that many world countries including Pakistan would experience instability and a volatile situation for decades as he termed al-Qaeda and Daesh (Islamic State) the biggest threat to America.
A few days back, a similar statement came from UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, who named certain countries including Pakistan to state that they should prepare for increased attacks by Daesh associated groups.
However, neither the US president nor the UN SG shares with Pakistan any information on the basis of which they issued these statements, seen as irresponsible by official sources.
No less than the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz rejected Obama’s statement, stating, “Whatever the US president said about instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan are his predictions and have nothing to do with ground realities.”
Later the former interior minister Abdur Rehman Malik wrote a letter to President Obama in which he sarcastically commented, “We believe that any statement by a responsible person of your (President Obama) standing must duly be supported by verified information indicating the real time threat level for parts of Pakistan to be continued for decades, as claimed by you in your address.”
Malik lamented, “I regret to say that the international community, and particularly the allies of “War on Terror” could not develop a well-formulated hard hitting strategy against terrorism and as a consequence the terrorists kept on growing worldwide, endangering all of us.”http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/98207-IB-MI-operation-nips-Daesh-in-the-bud-in-Pakistan
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