LONDON (The Thursday Times) — Nawaz Sharif, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and a three-time former prime minister, paid tribute on Monday to Pakistan’s soldiers fighting terrorism, telling reporters outside Avenfield House in London that “there is no doubt whatsoever regarding the sacrifices made by the Pakistan Army.”
Speaking in a brief doorstep exchange as he left the building, Sharif said: “Pakistan’s soldiers are fighting terrorists with great courage and valour. May Allah grant the martyrs a high place in His mercy. Those carrying out terrorism should not be spared.”
The remarks came in response to a reporter’s question rather than as part of a scheduled statement, and Sharif did not name a specific attack, operation or group behind them. He has been in London for roughly a week for medical check-ups, according to local reporting, and has made several informal appearances before journalists and supporters outside Avenfield during that time.
Sharif’s praise for the military’s “courage and valour” echoes language he has used throughout his political career to mark the deaths of soldiers and police officers in Pakistan’s long-running campaigns against militancy, from Waziristan to Balochistan to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. His call for those “carrying out terrorism” to face no leniency is similarly consistent with the posture both he and his party have taken in office, including during his own tenure as prime minister.
The comments were not tied by Sharif or by reporters present to any single recent incident. Pakistan has faced a sustained run of attacks on security forces through 2026, including strikes on military installations in North Waziristan and Tank district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, part of a broader resurgence of militant violence that has kept soldiers’ deaths a recurring feature of the news cycle.
Monday’s remarks also came in a week in which Sharif’s presence in London has drawn separate, unrelated attention: local reports said unidentified men had smashed the side mirrors of a vehicle associated with Sharif outside the same building days earlier, an incident police in London are understood to be looking into.
Sharif, who stepped down from the premiership in 2017 and has spent long stretches abroad since, remains PML-N’s president and its most senior figure, even as his brother Shehbaz Sharif holds the office of prime minister in Islamabad. His public remarks from London, however brief, are routinely picked up and amplified by Pakistani broadcasters and newspapers as statements of the party’s official line.∎
