ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will continue to be a “stalwart partner” of the United States in the fight against militancy, the State Department said on Monday, reiterating Washington’s support to Islamabad amid a surged in militant attacks in the South Asian country.
The statement came in response to a query about a deadly suicide bombing at a mosque inside a high-security police compound in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar that killed at least 84 people and wounded more than 220 others.
The attack was blamed on the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which called off a cease-fire with the government in November last year. The TTP, which shares common lineage and ideals with the Afghan Taliban, has carried waged an insurgency in Pakistani since late 2000s and carried out some of the deadliest attacks in the country.
Asked about the renewed wave of militancy in Pakistan, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US condemned the bombing in Peshawar that resulted in the deaths of scores of innocent civilians as well as public servants.
“This is a scourge that affects Pakistan, it affects India, it affects Afghanistan. It is something that we’re focused on throughout the entire region. When it comes to Pakistan, they’re an important partner of the United States, and a partner in any number of ways,” Price said a weekly press briefing.
“We’ve talked in recent days about our commitment to stand with Pakistan in the face of these security threats. Pakistan will continue to be a stalwart partner of the United States and vice versa in the face of these types of horrific terrorist attacks.”
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in militant attacks concentrated in regions bordering Afghanistan and Iran over the last year, particularly after the TTP ended its cease-fire with the government.
The TTP, which was formed in 2007 by Pakistani militants who splintered off from the Afghan Taliban, once held sway over swathes of northwest Pakistan, but the group was routed by successive military offensives after 2014. The militant group appears to have reorganized amid the fragile truce, which was brokered by the Afghan Taliban in May last year.
Pakistani officials have lately ruled out talks with militants that do not submit to the state’s writ and have summoned a conference of political leaders to discuss a strategy to form a unified front against militancy.