No Choice But To Fight Militants Till End: Zardari

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ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that there was no choice with the government but to fight the militants and extremists till the bitter end. He was addressing a jirga of public representatives and notables from Swat in the Presidency on Friday. The Swat Jirga was the second during this month aimed at soliciting suggestions from the local people and to focus on how best to fight the militants in the region. Attended by the Governor, Chief Minister, Federal Minister for Law and Justice Farooq Naik and Advisor Interior Rehman Malik, the Jirga was participated by about 60 notables from the area. Senior Ministers of frontier Rahimdad Khan and Bashir Bilour also attended the meeting. The President said that the militants wanted to hijack state power through the force of the gun to impose their own views on the people which simply not acceptable. There is no alternative but to fight them till the bitter end if we are to live as a nation in accordance with the aspirations of our people and not according to the dictates of a minority using brute force, he said. "The absence of alternatives makes the mind clear", he said, adding, "as the government has no alternative but to fight and defeat the militants its mind is clear about what to do", he said. The political and civilian leadership in the past has successfully confronted militancy in parts of the country and, drawing lessons from that experience, is determined to carry out the ongoing fight against militancy to logical conclusion, President Zardari said. He said that he will regularly meet representatives of the people from the affected areas to hear their views and to take their suggestions forward to the government. He said that the government's struggle against militancy was part of a larger struggle for saving the country, the federation and its federal and democratic structure. This is a total fight which has to be fought not just on one front but on many fronts and in totality, the President said.

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