The Pakistan Army on Monday said that an “organised political mafia” was spreading misinformation about a planned new counter-terrorism operation, ‘Azm-e-Istehkam’, aimed to flush out militants and foster economic growth and stability.

Army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif addressing a press conference in Rawalpindi talked about various pressing issues, including the launch of the operation. “A massive illegal, political mafia rose to sabotage the operation and the first move of that mafia was to make the operations controversial through false and fake arguments,” he said.

Referring to Pakistan’s earlier major military operations, Operation Zarb-e-Azb and Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad, which resulted in large-scale displacements, a reporter inquired if similar displacements would occur during the current operation, Azm-e-Istehkam.

“This is not a military operation but a comprehensive counter-terrorism initiative aimed at fostering economic growth and stability,” he said.

He referred to the previous military operations and said, “Our issue is that we make every important issue … a joke because of our politics”.

The army spokesperson said the problem is that “we are sacrificing even very important issues on the altar of politics and Azm-i-Istehkam is one such example of this”.

He also clarified that it was only for the purpose of “reinvigorating the already in-place National Action Plan (NAP)”, which was launched in 2014 to eliminate militancy.

He said efforts already underway would be “augmented” by law enforcement agencies empowered by effective legislation, as per the original announcement of the operation. The spokesperson said a “very strong lobby” did not want the objectives of the NAP to be fulfilled “because the stakes in (sabotaging) operation are very high and it’s not based on any ideology but involves a lot of money”.

Pointing to the National Action Plan’s 14 points, he said kinetic operations were “underway in a splendid manner” with “four to five operations underway every hour”.

Sharif said the NAP decided in 2014 to set up Counter-Terrorism Departments at the provincial levels and they would be responsible for leading operations against terrorism. He said it was also decided to register all the religious seminaries but only 16,000 out of about 32,000 seminaries have been registered so far.

Sharif said that so far, 22,409 intelligence-based operations have been conducted against terrorists and their facilitators this year. He said 137 officers and soldiers died in these operations, while 398 terrorists were also killed, including 31 high-value targets. 

The spokesperson said that “digital terrorism” is active against the army and its leadership on social media, adding that militants involved in attacks on law enforcement agencies and “digital terrorists” have one thing in common and that is both targeting the army and its leadership.

“Digital terrorists are using fake news to undermine the relationship between the army, the leadership of the army, the army and the people.”

He said that “just as a terrorist tries to get his point across by holding a weapon, in the same way, a digital terrorist tries to get his point across by spreading anxiety through mobile phones, computers, lies, fake news and propaganda”.

The spokesperson said that only law and punishment can stop digital terrorists, clarifying that if digital terrorists are not stopped, they will get more space. “Those illegal elements who want to make this country a soft state, we cannot allow it,” he added.

Sharif said over 112 operations were being conducted daily by the military and law enforcement agencies against

terrorism.

To a question about the Bannu protest case, he said that the protesters became violent, raised anti-state slogans and looted an army supply depot.

He accused the provincial government of failure to stop the protesters. The spokesperson also talked about fake news and propaganda which was targeting the armed forces and other institutions of the state.

“The purpose of this press conference is to clarify the army’s stance on some important topics,” he said, adding that there was some “increase in organised propaganda, false, wrong and concocted news” against the armed forces in recent times.