News Analysis: Pakistani troops expand offensive to Punjab to target militant hideouts

The Pakistani security forces have launched a higly-anticipated operation in the country's Punjab province, where the militants have taken shelter after fleeing the tribal regions.

The operation was launched after a terrorist attack in a public park in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, on March 27 that had killed nearly 70 civilians and injured about 300 others. A Pakistani Taliban splinter group had claimed the deadly bombing.

The military said army troops were assisting the paramilitary forces, counter-terrorism department and police in the major offensive in southern Punjab province.

Gunship helicopters were providing air support to the ground forces in the coordinated operation, the army spokesman said.

Pakistani troops have successfully cleared most of the tribal regions of the armed groups and are now in the final phase of the biggest operation in the rough mountainous terrain in the North Waziristan tribal region.

But the army, which is at the forefront of an anti-terrorism campaign across the country, was facing a formidable challenge from those facilitating the militant groups.

Intelligence officials believed that the facilitators and financiers of the terrorists have emerged as a serious threat to the security situation and an anti-terrorism plan that was launched after the Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014.

The threat has prompted the ongoing operations in many parts of Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan.

The Lahore suicide attack would not have been possible without the help of local facilitators, as a bomber cannot carry a suicide vest for hundreds of kilometers.

The Taliban group "Jamaat-ul-Ahrar," which had claimed the attack, released a photograph of the suspected bomber who was not a local.

It means that the bomber arrived in Lahore from another area and carried out the deadly attack in a public park, with the help of facilitators.

As the fleeing militants have now sneaked into the cities and are opting for soft targets with the help of facilitators, the situation has become the biggest challenge to the security forces despite years of operations in the tribal regions and other parts of the country.

Officials in Punjab have confirmed that around 100 facilitators of the militants have been arrested in Punjab since the park suicide bombing during the Easter holiday.

It was widely believed in both security and political circles that many militants, who had escaped from the tribal regions in the wake of the military operations, had established bases in the remote areas of Punjab province.

Those areas were never touched before, which also encouraged the fleeing militants to take shelter there.

Security analysts had long been advising the government to go after hideouts in southern Punjab, which were also known for the birth of extremist and sectarian groups like the Punjabi Taliban, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

The operation in Punjab has been hailed in Pakistan and there is growing hope that it would help eliminate the remnants of the banned groups.

Political commentators, security analysts and the media are asking the government to press ahead with the operation until all hideouts in the biggest province are dismantled. Endit