One of top military commanders on Wednesday ruled out an imminent offensive in North Waziristan, contradicting a newspaper report that Pakistan had agreed to assault the militant-infested region following pressure from the United States.
Speaking at a news conference in Mohmand Agency, one of the seven tribal areas on the Afghan border torn by militant violence, Lieutenant-General Asif Yasin Malik, commander of the 11th Corps based in Peshawar, said there was no change in his forces' posture in the last weeks. "I have no such plans as far as I am concerned," he told reporters. "We will undertake operations when we want to do it, when it is militarily and otherwise in the national interest to undertake such operations."
But Pakistan military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said the armed forces were too stretched to go into North Waziristan, pointing to ongoing operations elsewhere.
"We are engaged in many agencies at the moment," he said. "There are stabilisation operations, there is a consolidation phase going on. There are active operations, like in Orakzai and Kurram and Mohmand agency," he said.
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