LONDON: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that he wants to clear Pakistan from terrorism and militancy.
Zardari in an interview with British paper said that operations would in future target figures who were behind the militancy. “I don’t think anybody in the establishment supports them any more,” he said. “I think everybody has become wiser than this.”
“Military operations are all across the board against any insurgent whether in Karachi, Lahore or whether he is in any part of Pakistan,” he said. “My problem is terror. I have focused myself on terror. The PPP has focused itself against the extremist mindset. Terror is a regional problem, it cuts across borders.
“I would love to be remembered for creating a Pakistan where militancy – I know it can’t totally be diminished – is defeated.”
A day earlier Mr Zardari gained important support when Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, said that the “immediate internal threat” of Taliban militancy was greater than any “external threat”.
Gestures of goodwill towards India allied to a campaign to end militant influence has attracted criticism but for the moment his opponents are at bay. “It rankles the small mind,” he said. “It does not rankle the army, because after India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, that position of being able to take over another state is nullified.”
He reiterated a call for the US to sell aerial drones to the Pakistan military in place of mounting cross-border attacks. “My position is that I have always asked for possession of the drone; I want the Pakistani flag on it.”
The legacy for which he aims is wrapped up in the continuing impact of Miss Bhutto’s assassination. On that day, he said, he had saved Pakistan. “The people in the street were calling for blood and we went for a democratic offensive.”
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