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Pakistanis have long been target of terror: Obama
APP
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Thursday said the Taliban have long conducted a campaign of violence against the Pakistani people, including the horrific massacre of children in December 16, 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. “The Taliban have mounted a long campaign of violence against the Pakistani people that now tragically includes the massacre of more than 100 schoolchildren and their teachers,” he remarked, citing Pakistanis’ sufferings at the hands of terrorists, during a speech at a summit on countering violent extremism. He also referred to Pakistan while underscoring that Muslims around the world have stood up for protection of minorities in their countries. The Muslims “have risked their lives as human shields to protect Coptic churches in Egypt and to protect Christians attending mass in Pakistan and who have tried to protect synagogues in Syria.” Representatives from 60 countries are attending the summit, an attempt to find ways to combat radicalisation. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan is representing Pakistan. While discussing ways to fight radicalisation and extremist violence amid ISIS violence in the Middle East, Obama said in countries, including the United States, Muslim communities are still small, relative to the entire population, and as a result, many people don’t always know personally of somebody who is Muslim. “So the image they get of Muslims or Islam is in the news. And given the existing news cycle, that can give a very distorted impression. A lot of the bad, like terrorists who claim to speak for Islam, that’s absorbed by the general population.”
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk