Army won’t leave Waziristan till job is done: COAS

RAWALPINDI: The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), General Raheel Sharif, assured the tribesmen of South Waziristan Agency on Wednesday that having paid the price for operational successes, terrorists would never be allowed to return and the Pakistan Army will not go back till the job was fully done.
During his visit to South Waziristan, the army chief urged the tribal people to continue supporting security and rehabilitating operations to achieve the end objective of enduring peace and prosperity in these areas.
According to the ISPR, the COAS said that the Operation Zarb-e-Azb was in its final stages in the fewer left-out pockets. He said the Pakistan Army with the support of the entire nation had successfully evicted terrorists from the area.
General Raheel appreciated the support of the tribal brethren in combating terrorism and acknowledged their sacrifices in the war against terrorism.
The army chief inaugurated multiple projects as part of a post operation comprehensive rehabilitation plan for Fata. It included the UAE-funded state-of-the-art Wana Cadet College building for 500 children from Waziristan and the rest of Fata. The college will be compatible with the best cadet colleges of Pakistan. The initiative will go a great length in propelling the local youth into professional colleges and changing lives of their families.
Later, he commissioned a 132-KVA grid station and a 54-km transmission line at Wana, a modern power infrastructure for the people of Fata as their longstanding demand.
Speaking on the occasion to a large gathering of tribal people, the COAS said these development projects would improve the quality of life of common people, create job opportunities and usher economic prosperity into this area, which is the army’s main objective.
The COAS also visited Dera Ismail Khan and inaugurated the USAID-funded 62-kilometre Dera Ismail Khan-Hathala-Tank dual carriage road as part of the 705-kilometre Central Trade Corridor linking this region with Afghanistan.
The newly-constructed road by the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) will reduce the travelling time between the two cities from four hours to 40 minutes. General Raheel assured the locals that the entire rehabilitation plan will be fully executed and the IDPs will return as per plan to a better and infrastructurally much-developed region.
The tribal elders thanked the COAS for fulfilling the promises made to them on the development work.