Pakistan's internal security czar Nisar : Startling utterance

If this is the ruling hierarchy's internal security czar Nisar Ali Khan's understanding of the monstrosity of terrorism afflicting the nation so bloodily, the divine powers then have mercy on us. Taking on the critics purportedly asking for military operation to curb the beast, he sarcastically has asked if an operation in North Waziristan or FATA would bring peace to the entire country. But who will tell the eminence that terrorism is not just berthed in or confined to these two territories? It's a countrywide phenomenon. No part of the land is immune from it. Only the intensity of its bestiality varies; some areas having become its bleeding quarry, some having relatively less of it. But the entire land has it engulfed grievously and devastatingly. Accordingly, it has to be tackled all over the country, not in one niche or two.

And it is not the military alone that has to fight it out. The entire state in its multifarious roles has to get involved wholly. As the monstrosity has assumed the vicious form of urban terrorism predominantly, it is the police and other civil armed forces that are to get intensively and intensely involved. They in effect have to be in the lead to confront terrorism in metropolises, cities and towns. Busting the sleeper cells, lairs and hideouts of terrorism thugs in urban centres is their job, not the military's. And for the state's uniformed forces of every description to act decisively and effectively, the whole of the state intelligence apparatus has to be networked tightly with inviolable, unbreakable and fully-coordinated linkages of sharing information, particularly real-time. Without good intelligence, even the best security forces come out of the battle humiliatingly with mud plastered all over their faces.

And, then, the battle against terrorism has not to be fought on the security front alone. It has to be waged on multiple other fronts, especially administrative, educational, development and diplomatic. The administrative machineries have to muscularly scotch dissemination of hate literature and hate speech. The state has to step in vigorously to reorient the educational systems to inculcate a bubbling sense of moderation and tolerance in the studentry and modernise the religious education of madrassas for their pupils to be as well versed in sciences and languages as in religious subjects. And a stupendous development effort must accompany various anti-terrorism methods to provide avenues to the youth in particular to engage in acceptable ways to earn their and their families' living and not get seduced by anti-state element's allurements in any way. Then, a robust diplomatic action has to be mounted to put an end to the aliens' incitement and instigation of terrorism on our land.

But all this could come home only to the one who fully grasps the complexity of the evil phenomenon of terrorism that has become such a grave threat to our national stability and security. Nisar is definitely not such one. He remains focused entirely on the factions that pretend to be motivated by religious inspirations. But the vile phenomenon goring us so horrendously is no such a simple monstrosity. It is a complex syndicate, in which confessional extremists, sectarian fanatics, gunrunners, smugglers, kidnappers for ransom, plain murders, hired guns and proxies of the aliens have got together to unleash their vileness and thuggery on this beleaguered nation hurtfully and incurably. It is a beehive where nestle up all manner of terrorists and criminals, each and all pursuing their own pernicious agendas but helping one another in perpetuating their thuggish errands. This evil axis has to be taken on not disjointedly but multifariously to free the citizen from terrorism, bloodletting and criminality. But Nisar cannot understand this when he so irrationally and so ignorantly remain unsettlingly so uni-focused. Has indeed he ever doubted his own approach to this confounding complexity that makes up the nasty terrorism clobbering us all over and tried to know the credentials of the interlocutors he has in mind to talk peace with from this vicious beehive? Was he intrigued in any manner when the occupation coalition forces snatched slain TTP head Hakimullah Mehsud's deputy Lateef Mehsud from the convoy of Afghan spy service National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Afghanistan? Wasn't he any mystified when Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself protested strongly against this arrest? And did he ever bother to know why had the NDS agents themselves arrested fugitive Pakistani militant commander Faqir Mohammad, long ensconced like current TTP chief Fazlullah in bordering Afghan territory? Had he ever try to comprehend why had the Afghan hounds netted him after leaking that he was on their payroll? Had he turned a rogue, and his arrest and leak were a message other militants on this side of the border on their payrolls? And did he ever care to know where had Fazlullah disappeared in Afghanistan after leading, together with his father-in-law Sufi Mohammad, thousands of young Swati green horns to fight against US-led invaders of Afghanistan, and how after years had he surfaced in Swat, laden with enormous money and weapons?

Verily, Nisar needs to come out of his shell of superficiality and ignorance and look deep into terrorism pulverising the nation so horrifically. A counter-terrorism strategy he needs to evolve at once in collaboration with provincial governments as well as of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. A solo flight can't be his much-touted but so-far-elusive national security policy.