Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Friday that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should rather work on protecting the people of the province instead of “begging Afghanistan”.
The DG ISPR made these remarks while addressing a press conference at Peshawar Corps Headquarters.
He said that governance gaps in KP were being paid for by the blood of security personnel.
“Appeasement of terrorists and their facilitators is never and not a policy,” he asserted, adding that the state and its institutions would not be bothered by “any political distortions”.
“The state and its people will not and cannot be left to the whims of any single person who is singularly the most responsible person for bringing terrorism back to KP.”
He said that he hoped the government would focus on governance and the people it was duty-bound to protect. “We also hope that instead of begging Afghanistan, you will protect this province and its people.”
The DG ISPR began the press conference with paying homage on behalf of the armed forces of Pakistan to the “brave sons of soil” of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He said the purpose of the press conference was to give an overview of the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
For the past two decades, Pakistan, particularly KP, has been facing the issue of terrorism, he said.
In 2024, he said, 1,435 intelligence-based operations were conducted in KP, 769 terrorists, including 58 Afghan terrorists, were killed and 272 army and FC personnel and 140 policemen were martyred while 165 civilians were killed.
Moreover, he continued, 10,115 operations were conducted in 2025 until September 15. In these operations, 970 terrorists were killed while 311 Pakistan army personnel were martyred.
While terrorism incidents had started increasing 2021 onwards, “the response also went up”, the DG ISPR said. “And more number of kharijis were killed in subsequent years.”
The DG ISPR said following the 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, security forces had started uprooting terrorism as part of a comprehensive strategy.
“We reached close to [realising] the dream of a peaceful Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. [But], unfortunately, as part of a plan, terrorists and their facilitators were then provided space here.
“Governance and public welfare were deliberately weakened and attempts were made to build a misleading narrative. The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are paying its price with their blood and sacrifices even today.”
He then outlined the factors that led to this situation.
First reason, he said, was not fully implementing the National Action Plan, followed by politicising the issue of terrorism, India using Afghanistan as a “base of operation for terrorism” in Pakistan, the provision of modern weapons to terrorists in Afghanistan and the existence of a “terrorism-crime nexus” that had “complete local and political backing”.
Going back to the 2014 APS attack, he said all political parties, and the provincial and federal government devised the NAP. “All political parties agreed that the implementation of the NAP was necessary for eliminating terrorism.”
But, he added, the then-government removed some provisions of the plan in 2021 despite progress in those areas and came up with the “revised” NAP. All political parties, provincial governments and the federal government then agreed to the full implement all 14 points of the revised plan, he said.
Pointing to a graphic of the plan on the screen, he said the first point concerned kinetic operations.
“Is this being worked on or not? I have presented the data for KP to you. Just in KP, are law enforcement agencies not conducting more than 40 intelligence-based operations?”
He asserted that the empirical evidence demonstrated that work was being done on the first point of the NAP. He then went on to question the work being done on the remaining 13 points.
“Today, are we all standing under one narrative? Do you not hear voices calling for talks with these terrorists? Are we following this a NAP?
“Does the solution to all problems lie in dialogue? You tell me. If the solution for every problem is in dialogue when India fired missiles on Pakistan on May 6 and 7 … Why didn’t the people of this country say let’s hold talks?”
If the solution lay in just holding dialogue, there would be no wars, he emphasised.
More to follow
