Pak army chief directs officers to hunt for terrorists

Warning that 'badly bruised and isolated' terrorists will go for softer targets for their own survival, Pakistan's Chief of Aremy Staff General Raheel Sharif directed senior security officials to frustrate their designs and hunt them down.

Following the targeted killing of qawwali maestro Amjad Sabri and the kidnapping of the son of the Chief Justice of Sindh, General Sharif reviewed the security situation in Karachi and said that there is a need to up the ante against terrorists and criminals.

While Sabri was shot dead by two motorcycle-riding gunmen in the Liaquatabad neighbourhood of Karachi on Wednesday, a day earlier advocate Ovais Ali Shah was seized by masked gunmen from outside Agha's Supermarket.

Following the high-profile incidents some politicians and analysts questioned the effectiveness of the ongoing Rangers-led targeted operation in the provincial metropolis.

General Sharif said that the Karachi operation has brought about a noticeable improvement in the law and order situation of the city.

"However, as we progress to target the crime and terror syndicate network, we need to keep our focus on actionable human and technical intelligence and totally dismantle their support structure," the Express Tribune quoted him, as saying during a meeting at the Corps Headquarters in Karachi yesterday.

According to the statement released by the ISPR , Interior Minster Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. (retired) Nasser Janjua, Sindh's governor and chief minister, Home Minister Sohail Anwar Sial, ISI chief and the corps commander attended the meeting.

"The operation has now entered a phase where terrorists and their abettors are badly bruised, isolated and hence will go for softer targets so as to find their survival and undermine the society psychologically," General Sharif added.

The army chief said that the nexus of terrorists, their abettors, sympathisers and financiers will be broken at all costs and the ongoing operation will be taken to its logical conclusion.