Pakistan: Response to terrorism

Editorial

The assault on the Pakistan Air Force Base Minhas in` Kamra may be a reminder that our security apparatus has serious flaws, but the quick and timely action taken by the base defenders prevented bigger damage. The counter-attack by the Quick Response teams of the base suggests they were on alert to deal with any untoward incident in the light of an intelligence report a few days before the attack. This is not the first attack on a sensitive military target. The attacks on GHQ (Rawalpindi) and PNS Mehran (Karachi) and three different attacks on Kamra since 2007 are a series of similar events. These provide conclusive evidence that the state is at war with the terrorists who wish to impose their narrow vision of religion on Pakistan through force of arms. It came as no surprise that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack. After all they have openly declared war on the state. COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani the other day sent a clear message of terror looming large over national security, implying the enemy is within. The statement of US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta expressing concern about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the wake of the Kamra attack may be part of long standing western worries that the arsenal could fall into the wrong hands. But the US State Department, through its spokesperson Victoria Nuland, came to Islamabad’s rescue and supported the foreign office’s contention that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure and under a proper command and control system. Panetta continues in his self-assumed role of ‘bad cop’, while State continues to pour oil on troubled waters in its avatar as the ‘good cop’ vis-à-vis Pakistan. Where the security forces seem to have learnt lessons from previous attacks and thwarted the assault on Minhas Airbase with minimum losses, the attack on buses in the Babusar Top area of Mansehra district, where 25 people were killed after being identified as Shias, shows that the law enforcers of the country are way behind the curve on terrorism generally, and sectarian terrorism in particular. Obviously a number of such incidents have occurred in the northern areas previously with an identical modus operandi, but after the usual fuss in the immediate aftermath of such tragedies, the authorities become lax over time and the buses revert to plying without any security arrangements. The terrorists meanwhile wait out the initial flurry of the security forces and as soon as they see that it is back to business as usual, launch their own unique ‘enterprise’. Time and again lack of coordination among the intelligence, law enforcement and security agencies has been discussed in the light of the need to set up an overarching body that would manage and oversee coordination and collaboration among different agencies, ranging from the armed forces to the civilian setup, and from the federal government to the provinces, to ensure a concerted national effort against the various types and forms of terrorism, ranging from those who are waging war on the state directly (e.g. the TTP) to those involved in an indirect assault on state and society through sectarian murder. A country that has been ravaged by militancy, terrorism and sectarian conflict cannot sit sanguine on the issue of security lapses and the legal loopholes that allow terrorists to wriggle through the judicial system and return as free persons to their nefarious activities. This is tantamount to a self-inflicted invitation to threats, violence and instability. We are sitting on a volcano, and the enemy we are faced with is difficult to squash because of its scattered nature, with no central command structure that may lend itself to concerted action. Most groups in the field of terrorism are small, largely operationally autonomous entities that bite like the flea and then vanish. All the more reason for a centralised intelligence and operational database under coordinated command if the challenge is to be met.`