The return of terror

After a brief period of relative calm, Pakistan is once again witnessing a surge in terrorist attacks across the country. A week ago, a blast near a school in Peshawar left seven people including four children injured. This week around 23 soldiers were martyred in a small town near Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Political observers believe that much of what we are seeing today is because of the rash decisions made by previous governments regarding the resettlement of militants. 

It is in this context that PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has demanded an inquiry into the negotiations with militants that were carried out without taking parliament and people into confidence, eventually leading to a rise in terror activities in the country. He said this while addressing the members of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) on Wednesday (Dec 13). Bilawal thinks that allowing the militants to resettle in the tribal areas has pushed the country a decade back -- wiping off all the victories made by Pakistan with respect to defeating terrorists. He now demands that those responsible for this decision are held accountable. Addressing a press conference alongside Caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti earlier this week, Bilawal had raised similar concerns and held the PTI government responsible for the resurgence of terror. He had said that the PTI’s decision was made without the input of parliament or the people and undermined our martyrs as Imran Khan’s government allowed engagement with the very terrorists that the country had eradicated after more than a decade of the war on terror and our brave fight against terrorism in which we lost soldier and citizen both in their thousands. Bilawal is not wrong about what happened during the PTI government’s tenure. The National Security Committee (NSC) meeting held in April this year had also pointed out that the resurgence of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was a consequence of a “soft corner” for the terrorist outfit and a “thoughtless policy” towards it, which resulted in not just the return of terrorists to Pakistan but also the release of dangerous and hardened militants from jails as “confidence-building measures”.

It is no secret that ever since the fall of Kabul during the PTI’s tenure, the TTP has not only regrouped but also been successful in carrying out terrorist attacks in settled areas and major cities of the country. Soon after the fall of Kabul, President Arif Alvi and then-foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi talked about giving amnesty to those TTP members who agreed to lay down their arms and follow the constitution of Pakistan. It wasn’t just the president or the foreign minister who disclosed this information in interviews, but then-PM Imran Khan also acknowledged in an interview with foreign media outlet that his government was in talks with some groups of the TTP.

That they disclosed this information to the media but did not care to take parliament into confidence, talk to other political parties, or inform people that they were planning to resettle some TTP members and their families is astonishing. Those who raised concerns that such decisions could allow the TTP to regroup and strengthen itself were labelled anti-state or anti-peace. Unfortunately, those were perfectly valid concerns as we are now left to bear the brunt of the policies that were made in haste. Data shared by Islamabad-based research organisation the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reveals that there were at least 599 attacks in the year till November end, killing almost 900 people. The number of attacks shows an 81 percent increase from the corresponding period in 2022. All those stakeholders who are responsible for this ill-thought-out policy should answer for their mistakes. At the end of the day, it is Pakistan that is still paying the price for the war on terror.