Islamabad : A top American general in command of international forces in Afghanistan has said that Pakistan’s ongoing military operation in North Waziristan has helped disrupt the Haqqani network’s ability to launch attacks on Afghan territory, a media report said Thursday.
Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, a senior commander for the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a Pentagon-hosted video briefing from Afghanistan Wednesday that the Haqqani network was now fractured like the Taliban, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
“They are fractured. They are fractured like the Taliban is. That’s based pretty much on the Pakistan military operations and North Waziristan this entire summer-fall,” he said, while acknowledging the effectiveness of Pakistan’s continuing military offensive known as “Zarb-e-Azb”.
“That has very much disrupted their efforts in Afghanistan and has caused them to be less effective in terms of their ability to pull off an attack here in Kabul,” Anderson added.
Since its launch in June this year, the Pakistani offensive has eliminated a large number of militants, the Daily Times reported.
Anderson revealed that 4,634 members of Afghanistan’s police and army have been killed in action this year.
The Haqqani netwrok is an Islamist terrorist organisation which fights against the US-led NATO forces and the government of Afghanistan. They operate on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.