Top civil-military huddle vows to eliminate terror day after Shabqadar attack

Participants of meeting chaired by PM Nawaz pay tributes to martyrs of Shabqadar suicide attack

ISLAMABAD: The country's top civil-military leadership on Tuesday vowed to eliminate terrorism and reviewed the internal security situation, a day after Shabqadar court attack.

In a meeting of the country’s top civil-military leaders, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the PM House in Islamabad, the participants condemned the cowardly act of terrorism in Shabqadar in which civilians and law enforcement agency personnel lost their precious lives, a statement said.



“The meeting agreed that elimination of terrorism from our soil is a national resolve and paid tributes to the personnel of law enforcement and security agencies who embraced martyrdom while fighting this menace of terrorism,” it added.

Further, issues pertaining to national and internal security were discussed during the meeting which was attended by Army chief General Raheel Sharif, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar, SAPM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (retd) Nasir Janjua, DG ISI Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chauhdhary and other senior officials of the government.

The meeting comes a day after 16 people, including three police personnel, were killed in a suicide attack in Shabqadar Bazaar of Charsadda district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Shabqadar, located about 150 kilometres northwest of Islamabad, is adjacent to the Mohmand tribal area, which has seen several attacks in recent days.

Hours after the attack, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) splinter group Jammatul Ahrar had claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for Mumtaz Qadri’s execution. “We are responsible for the attack on the district court in Shabqadar,” TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan said in a statement.



The TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has been waging an insurgency against the state since 2007, in a bid to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

A series of military operations in tribal areas — the latest of which was Zarb-e-Azb launched in 2014 — have reduced the TTP’s ability to hit major targets regularly, but attacks on security and civilian targets do continue to occur.