Of wars won and lives lost

We have been told repeatedly that the war on terrorism, launched under Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2014, has been won. But the 23 people who died in the Anbar Tehsil of Mohmand Agency on the Pak-Afghan border on Friday, when a suicide bomber detonated his vest inside a mosque, will never know this. For them and their families, the war has brought only death. The Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter faction of the Taliban which has been particularly aggressive and assertive over the past few months, has claimed responsibility for the attack which also left over 40 injured. The limited medical facilities in the tribal area contributed to the suffering of the wounded. In the past, the same group claimed responsibility for the death of at least 73 in a blast in Quetta where lawyers were targeted and of others who died when a court in Mardan was hit. It is hard to understand why our intelligence apparatus has not been able to pin down this group. We accept they may have access to assistance from across the Afghan border. But this can still not explain the failures of our own forces and information gathering networks. Before we make claims of winning wars, we need to make sure these accounts are accurate. The fact that groups which have existed for years remain apparently intact and still strong enough to strike is hardly reassuring. A proper security analysis is required immediately to assess where we are going wrong.

We should remember also that the Mohmand blast was the second in just a few days. On Eid day, a suicide bomber had attempted to enter an Imambargah in the Khanpur area of Shikarpur. He detonated his vest prematurely after being intercepted by a brave police officer. That policeman, Rafiq Qureshi, lost his battle for survival on Friday and died in a Karachi hospital. His death has been mourned, and praises rolled out by politicians. While ten people died at Shikarpur, Qureshi’s actions saved the lives of possibly hundreds others. There have been more and more instances in which security personnel manning checkposts and gates have given up their lives to save the lives of others. They have perhaps received too little applause for their immense bravery. But such courage needs to be backed up by higher powered action to stop the terrorists in their stride. For now, as we have seen at Mohmand, they continue to walk across our country leaving behind stains of blood where bodies fall. It is evident there is much that remains to be done before we can claim a victory over militancy.