ISLAMABAD:Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Bajwa said on Thursday that Pakistan’s new anti-terrorism National Action Plan is proving effective in cutting the funding of terrorist groups operating in the country.
In an interview with Russia’s Sputnik, Bajwa that while some parts of the National Action Plan have already been initiated, other aspects require more time due to political challenges.
Pakistan is expanding its anti-extremism measures focusing on younger people, who are the primary targets of terrorist recruitment, Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said.
“One of the biggest achievements of the plan were the physical operations in FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], intelligence-based operations and choking the funding of terrorist groups,” Bajwa said.
He mentioned the May bus attack in Safoora Goth, a neighborhood in the Pakistani city of Karachi, as one of the recent incidents proving the increasing activity of radicalized youth.
“In regards to Safoora Goth tragedy, there was an educated youth involved,” Bajwa said, stressing however that “it does not mean that the entire youth of Pakistan is radicalized or is involved in extremism.”
Bajwa told Sputnik that we started with some pilot projects for the deradicalization program that now has extended to the national level.
