WASHINGTON: The annual US State Department report has said that the reintegration of deradicalised terrorists into society remained a priority in Pakistan during 2015.
The report, released on Thursday afternoon, pointed out that Islamabad despite various problems in counterterrorism strategy, remained a critical counterterrorism partner last year.
The State Department said that the Pakistani government throughout last year operated a number of de-radicalisation camps in different parts of the country and offered “corrective religious education, vocational training, counselling and therapy.”
It also acknowledged that in 2015, Pakistan implemented a National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism, which seeks to prevent future terrorist attacks on its soil.
“Also throughout 2015, the Pakistani military continued ground and air operations in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency to eliminate terrorist safe havens and recover illegal weapons caches,” the Dawn quoted the report, as saying.
The report, however, noted that Islamabad did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or the Haqqani network in 2015 and did little to deter homegrown jihadi groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).
“Afghanistan, in particular, continued to experience aggressive and coordinated attacks by the Afghan Taliban, including the Haqqani network, and other insurgent and terrorist groups,” the report said.
The report also alleged that a number of these attacks were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan and also complained that Pakistan had not taken sufficient action against other externally-focused groups either, such as LeT and JeM which continued to “operate, train, organise, and fundraise in Pakistan”.
It also noted that Hafiz Saeed, the leader Jamaat-ud-Dawa who is also an UN-designated terrorist, was able to make frequent public appearances in support of the organisations’ objectives without Pakistan government raising a finger to stop him.
The State Department in its report also underlined the “slow pace of trial proceedings” for the accused in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack and noted that Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of these attacks was released on bail in April 2015, though he remained under house arrest at the end of 2015.