Pakistan arrests 3500 terrorists, says Interior Ministry
As we highlighted a week ago, Pakistan is in the midst of an unprecedented crackdown against terrorists: the only problem is just who the Government label as being terrorists.  Yesterday the Interior Minister informed the Cabinet that 3500 terrorists had been arrested since the crackdown began last December, and that "now no militant network can operate in Pakistan".  Pakistan has executed 211 'convicted terrorists' so far this year. However there are reports that the police have embarked on a campaign of extra-judicial killing of criminals, with one senior officer talking of 1000 such deaths year to date.
Islamabad: Pakistan government has achieved major successes against militants who are now unable to operate from the country, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar claimed on Monday.

"Terrorism has been brought down by 70 per cent and now no militant network can operate in Pakistan," he told reporters after a cabinet meeting on the National Action Plan (NAP) which was launched in December in the wake of the attack at an army-run school in Peshawar in which over 150 people, mostly students, were killed.

Nisar credited the success of the plan to better civil-military relationship, which he said was on the same page in the fight against militancy.

The minister also took credit for starting executions and said that the government has carried out 211 death penalties and will continue the capital punishment despite criticism from right groups.

Nisar said nine military speedy trial courts have been established which so far have decided 28 cases, while 46 are under trial. He said legal changes are being introduced to improve the criminal justice system.

Nisar also said that terrorism has decreased after peaking in 2010 when 2,061 terrorist attacks were recorded. It was down to 1,640 in 2014 and so far this year only 695 incidents have been recorded, the minister said.

"We focused on intelligence-based operations (IBO), in the past nine months we have conducted more than 5,900 IBOs," Nisar said.

He said 1,000-strong counter-terrorism force in each province has been set up while the army remains deployed as a quick-reaction force. The Interior Minister said that the army would remain deployed in capital Islamabad.

Earlier, addressing the cabinet meeting in Islamabad, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Operation Zarb-i-Azb and the Karachi Operation have been progressing successfully. He said the government has decided to take tough action against private militias. Sharif said the government was committed to wipe out terrorists.

PTI