Islamabad, May 18 (IANS) Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that the Taliban have spent huge sums of money to lure youths to carry out suicide attacks in the country.
He said: “They (Taliban) bought youths from the poor families in half a million to 2.5 million rupees (about $30,802) for suicide attacks.”

The Taliban want to weaken the country, Malik told reporters after visiting relief camps in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

He said the operation against the Taliban will continue till the militants are eliminated. “We are moving in the right direction and soon the nation would hear good news.”

Referring to the military operation in the Swat Valley, he said: “Swat is a seven-year-old issue and would take time to solve.”

“We have inherited these problems. The mines, missiles and weapons (of the Taliban) have not been acquired in one day,” he added.

“The operation was not carried out in haste. I have repeatedly been saying that the operation was unavoidable because the Taliban were abducting government officials. They were trying to make a state within a state. They violated peace deal many times,” Malik said.

Replying to a question from a reporter, he said he didn’t know whether the Pakistani Taliban chief Sufi Muhammad was dead.

More than 1,000 militants have been killed in the operation so far, the Online news agency said Monday citing Malik.

–Indo-Asian news Service

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