From Wana to Islamabad, Pakistan has been rocked by massive terrorist attacks in less than 24 hours. A suicide blast rocked the federal capital on Tuesday, leaving at least 12 martyred and 27 injured outside a kachehri court building. The Islamabad attack comes a day after militant infiltration in Wana Cadet College in South Waziristan, where terrorists attacked the military institute on Monday. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that the security forces eliminated two attackers and trapped three inside. At the time of writing these lines, reports indicated that out of 537 students present in the college, 137 had been safely evacuated. The remaining children are not hostages but had till this editorial was being written not yet been evacuated due to crossfire. The attacks continued on Tuesday as well, when the capital was also rocked by a suicide bombing. These attacks clearly show that the TTP and its affiliates are not just active but are now targeting main cities of the country like they used to do in the past and the Wana college attack is reminiscent of the 2014 Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. Fortunately, children in the Wana attack are safe but the manner in which these terrorists have again targeted children in an educational institution and civilians in a court of law shows that their only aim is to spread fear and chaos in every nook and corner of Pakistan. It is no secret that India is funding and backing these terrorists, using them as proxies to destabilise Pakistan, while the Afghan Taliban regime is providing safe havens to TTP leadership and members.
These attacks come at a time when Qatar and Turkiye tried to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan after clashes erupted between the two neighbours in October. However, three rounds of talks largely remained inconclusive as the Afghan Taliban are unwilling to give written guarantees that they will stop cross-border terrorism by the TTP and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA). Pakistan said that the Taliban regime was "only interested in prolonging the temporary ceasefire, but without taking concrete and verifiable actions against the terrorist elements present on Afghan soil". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that a high-level Turkish delegation will travel to Pakistan this week to end the deadlock. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has urged Kabul to rein in militant groups operating from Afghan soil, framing it as the prerequisite for durable peace in the region.
PM Shehbaz is right in asking the Taliban regime to stop cross-border infiltration and terrorism as a prerequisite for peace in the region. If the Taliban regime continues dilly-dallying on the TTP issue, Pakistan will be left with no choice but to use kinetic options, which it has so far only used in rare instances. Observers have also pointed out how the relationship between the Taliban regime and India has suddenly gone from cold to cosy only because India wants to use Afghanistan as the base for its terrorist proxies and use them against Pakistan. A day after a car blast rocked the Indian capital, Pakistan’s capital was attacked by a suicide bomber. It just goes on to show that the nexus of the Afghan Taliban, India and the TTP is something that Pakistan will have to fight not just on its eastern and western borders but across Pakistan as well. This will be a long and hard fight.