Islamabad: Days after Pakistan carried out a deadly attack on its security forces inside a mosque in Peshawar, the country’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has admitted inside the National Assembly that it was a collective mistake to prepare the Mujahideen for war with a global power . Addressing the upper house of parliament on Tuesday, Sanaullah said, “We didn’t need to create mujahideen. We created mujahideen and then they became terrorists.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, also speaking in the National Assembly, said that the country’s National Security Committee will decide on the operation against the terrorists. The interior minister also claimed that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government of former prime minister Imran Khan had released members of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or Pakistani Taliban who were facing death sentences. Were staying
Sanaullah’s comments came after the banned TTP claimed responsibility on Monday for the January 30 mosque attack in Peshawar that left 100 people dead and over 220 injured. The blast took place in the central hall of the mosque at around 1 pm on Monday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up.
Pakistan’s interior minister professes the belief that the TTP, formally known as Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamic armed terrorist groups operating along the Afghan-Pakistani border. According to Geo News, it was wrong to lay down arms and bow before the law.
Pakistan’s National Assembly witnessed a heated debate yesterday with members demanding major reforms to end terrorism. Following the Peshawar mosque blast, a faction of the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack, but hours later a TTP spokesman tweeted dissociating himself from the claim and said that their policy does not include targeting mosques.
Since November last year, terror attacks have been on the rise in Pakistan following a peace deal between the TTP and the Pakistan government, which was called off by the proscribed group. The TTP was formed in the year 2007 by uniting several armed groups that opposed Pakistan’s cooperation with the US in the war against terrorism. The TTP supported the Afghan Taliban’s fight against the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Sanaullah stressed that it is wrong to think that the TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban. He said that the earlier policy of rehabilitating Taliban could not bear fruit and gave rise to the present situation in Pakistan. Pakistan’s federal minister said that the current government has changed its approach towards the Taliban. Geo News reported that he condemned the terrorist attack at the mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines and said the suicide bomber’s aim was to target police personnel.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif also blamed Afghan refugees for the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan while speaking in the National Assembly. He said that in the last 1.5 years, about 4.5 lakh Afghans entered Pakistan with valid documents but did not return back to Afghanistan.