ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday held its first Pakistan Day parade in seven years, a display of pageantry aimed at showing the country has the upper hand in the fight against the terrorists.
Mobile phone networks in the capital were disabled to thwart potential bomb attacks, some roads were closed to the public and much of the city was under heavy guard for the event.
The annual Pakistan Day parade was last held in 2008 before authorities abandoned it because of fears it could be targeted as militants increased their attacks on the military.
The military says the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is on the rack now thanks to an offensive waged against militant strongholds since June last year, allowing the display of martial pomp to be restarted.
The event, presided over by President Mamnoon Hussain, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief General Raheel Sharif, was held on a parade ground in leafy Islamabad.
The event comes just over three months after TTP gunmen massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar, an atrocity that shocked even conflict-weary Pakistan.
President Hussain paid tribute to soldiers fighting militants in the restive northwest, calling them his sons and pledging to go to the front line to hug them.
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