Karachi attack

If there were any doubts that terrorism is not just here in the country but that terrorists have access to every part of the country, Friday night’s attack in Karachi will have laid to rest any lingering scepticism – not that there should have been any in the first place. We have not yet recovered from the horrors seen in Peshawar where militants attacked a mosque within the city’s police lines, killing nearly 100 people. And now comes an attack in the country’s largest city, Karachi, where three terrorists – per law-enforcement officials – attacked the Karachi Police Office on the main Shahrah-e-Faisal. All three attackers were killed in the law-enforcement operation that followed during which two policemen, one member of the Rangers, and a civilian also lost their lives.

Friday night’s brazen attack by the militants – the TTP to be exact as the group has claimed responsibility – is a timely and terrifying reminder that we may be right back in the centre of a chaotic spiral into terrorism stalking the land once again. The only way out are definite solutions, clear strategies and no tolerance at all for any obfuscation regarding terrorism. After the APS attack in December 2014, we had believed that a policy would be developed to deal with militancy and we would never really need to see these horrors again. The National Action Plan drawn up at the time never quite took effect. And now we have a new wave of terror striking our country. We also have an apparently helpless political leadership that would rather indulge in petty politics than sit together and discuss how to get the country and its people to safer shores from the very real danger they face as violence and terror make a comeback. This also needs to be done to allow political stability in the country and to permit the economy to stabilize into a situation where investment is possible in the country and foreign investors are willing to come in.

The helplessness of police and paramilitary forces is also terrifying. They are in the eye of the storm, as the TTP has pretty much declared war on them. For the sake of our security officials, our first line of defence, and every single Pakistani, we need a solution to rescue the country from the horror it has lived with for far too long mainly because our political leadership has lacked the spine to stand up to it. The ability of the TTP to strike anywhere, at any time, cannot be seen as anything other than a severe security failure. For all our undeniable successes in clearing the tribal areas of the militant infestation and the significant drop in casualties from attacks in the last few years, it is now clear that the victory of the Afghan Taliban across the border has been a morale booster for the TTP here. Fighting the TTP and militancy overall requires us not just to prevail on the battlefield but to improve our intelligence capabilities so that defensive measures can be taken to guard against impending attacks. Above all, we need to fight the regressive and violent ideology all militant groups share. The recent spate of attacks shows that only a zero-tolerance policy towards militancy will make Pakistan and its people safer.