Pakistan's ambassador to the United States has called on all anti-terror allies to join hands with Islamabad in carrying out the enormous relief effort for displaced people of Malakand, who foiled the Taliban ploy to use masses as their human shield in the face of vital military offensive.
Citing United Nations estimates, Ambassador Husain Haqqani said on Sunday Pakistan immediately needs about $600 million to provide relief to over two million people from Swat and other north-western areas, who are now living in camps in Mardan and Swabi and staying temporarily with their relatives elsewhere. Islamabad, he told FOX News channel, has around $200 million in hand and looks forward to getting rest of the money from its international friends.
The US, he noted, has promised to extend $110 million in humanitarian relief assistance. "The key is, the people who want to support the fight against terror, need to support these displaced people as well. Because what they really did was, they refused to become a human shield in a very important effort by the Pakistani military dislodge al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters," Haqqani stressed.
The relief operation requires urgent healthcare assistance, medical supplies, food and protection for the internally displaced persons of cool valleys to help them weather the scorching summer. The Pakistani military has been successful in its drive to break the Taliban strongholds at several places in Swat and adjacent valleys, he said.
"We have cleared out 85 percent of the region, and the few pockets that are remaining are also being battled by the military. So this is definitely a military success," Haqqani said, referring to operations launched in the scenic Swat valley, Mingora, Buner and Lower Dir in the month-old offensive.
The Pakistani government, he said, is firmly resolved to 'defeat the Taliban completely.' Confronted with a determined air and ground offensive by the Pakistani military, the militants are now resorting to the typical terror tactics of bombings in the cities.
"Whenever terrorists come under attack, this is their strategy. They don't fight by the rules that humanity and civilisation have evolved over centuries. What they do is strike at random in cities," he said at the end of a week that saw Pakistani major cities of Lahore and Peshawar suffer from a string of deadly bombings.
Meanwhile, a massive intelligence effort is afoot to prevent militants from carrying out terrorist attacks in the country, the ambassador said. But, he cautioned, "stopping every suicide bomber everywhere is a huge challenge". "So we just have to be vigilant. Pakistan has been a major victim of terrorism right now and has paid a heavy price in the fight against terrorism."
Pakistan, a key anti-terror partner of the international community on the Afghan border, expects sustained support from its friends in the costly rehabilitation and reconstruction phases that lie ahead when people start returning home upon expulsion of militants from the Malakand division.