Terror wave

After a terrifying reminder of rising terror through attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and then even the federal capital, over this past weekend Balochistan was on the terrorists’ radar, the province having been hit by a number of separate blasts – in Quetta, Turbat, Hub and Kahan in the Kohlu district. Five soldiers were martyred and more than a dozen others were injured in these attacks. The past few weeks in the country have seen a sharp rise in terrorist attacks across Pakistan, from Bannu to Chaman to Islamabad to Quetta. Given the long fight the people and security forces of Pakistan put up for over a decade, and which led to a marked decrease in terror strikes, this new wave of terror should be of concern not just to the government and state institutions but every citizen who can remember the dark days of terrorist attacks in the country.

The incidents in Balochistan coincide with a growth in terrorism by the TTP, the threat of which is now casting a shadow across the country. The responsibility for the attack in Kahan – in which army personnel were martyred – was claimed by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a banned militant group. Politicians from across the political divide have condemned the attacks, but we have made pledges before this too. We need to understand the trajectory of terrorism to understand what we have lost and gained over the decades and why these attacks should be taken very seriously. Following the war on terror, there was a crackdown on militancy in Pakistan but the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) became a reality that could just not be wished away and which continued to wreak havoc across the country. The post-Musharraf years saw a peak in terrorism following the Lal Masjid operation. We saw how Swat was first taken over by the local Taliban. The TTP kept getting stronger until the horrific APS attack that led to a political consensus to take proper action against the TTP. As a result, a huge military operation was launched. The TTP leadership was either captured, killed or managed to cross the border into Afghanistan. When the Afghan Taliban came to power, the previous government celebrated it as if it was Pakistan’s victory somehow. However, many experts had at the time warned the Imran Khan government that they should not think that the Afghan Taliban would go after the TTP. Then came news that Pakistan was negotiating with the TTP. No reason was given for this. And now we are facing the real possibility of the TTP rising.

Needless to say, everything must be done to make sure this terror wave is nipped in the bud. We need to provide citizens a sense of security and safety. Plans which were discussed and put on paper following an earlier wave of terrorism need to now be dusted and re-read – and implemented. That includes reviving nacta, looking at NAP again, and not wasting any time in making excuses or blaming each other. That also includes no arbitrary decisions to ‘talk to’ the TTP. Raw intelligence on its own is rarely useful. It is only when various strands of data are combined and intelligently analysed that it becomes workable. Originally, Nacta was conceived as a clearinghouse for intelligence from all the different civilian and intelligence agencies. The only hope of achieving that is for Nacta to be fully-staffed and operational as the central depository for intelligence. Militancy is a threat so potent that the only way to defeat it is by presenting a united front. Pakistan just cannot afford a return of terrorism when we are already facing political and economic uncertainty.