Islamabad Court Attack: Startling ignorance

The horrific terrorist attack on the court complex in Islamabad and the fatal terrorist assault on the paramilitary vehicle in Khyber Agency on the same day brings out chillily how appallingly is out of its depth the ruling hierarchy berthed in the federal capital so grandiosely. Now in power it is just a short distance from one year. Over this period, it must have received piles of inputs and lots of briefings on national security from various security agencies. Yet it strikingly remains as unread on the terrorism monstrosity ravaging the country so horrendously as was it when it strode into the power chambers of Islamabad. Unshakably, it keeps clinging on to the assumptions that it had imbibed unthinkingly as incontrovertible truths when not in power. For which while it is being taken for a ride so docilely by the militants, the nation is getting all the punishment for this pliability of its.

If the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is not playing its game of deceit and deception and is truthfully not involved in these two lethal terrorist assaults of Monday, then what is the point in talking peace with it at all? If it has no control on the terrorist syndicate bloodying our people so savagely, then what would come of a peace deal if struck with it? Wouldn't the blood-thirsty demons of terrorism and militancy keep stalking the land as murderously and lethally as are they now? Would ever indeed this hierarchy come out of its numbing self-imbibed delusion of being the architect of a unique method of dealing with militancy and terrorism that had occurred not to its predecessors' minds? When indeed would it start fretting that the terrorism blighting the nation so woefully is not as simple as has it assumed to be? And when will it start asking compelling questions, which though simple in appearance bring out when answered the horror of the terrorism monstrosity blighting our people in all its enormity, complexity and vileness?

Has it ever asked the basic question where from does the money come to the outfit for the upkeep of its gunmen? Even if they are in hundreds, just the daily spending on their food works out into hundreds of thousands of rupees and runs into millions by the end of a month. Add up to it the obviously mind-boggling cost of war hardware in their armoury. Notably, no ordinary weaponry is it. Their arsenal includes sophisticated guns, rocket launchers, grenades and a deadly assortment of munitions. The communication equipment they carry could not even be available to many a world army. And they have at their disposal plenty of expensive vehicles fit for mountainous as well as inhospitable terrains. This deadly arsenal requires money in millions and millions of rupees to acquire. How this huge mountain of cash comes by to the outfit?

Has the hierarchy ever asked this question and found its answer? The outfit is certainly not sitting on a gold mine. And the kidnappings for ransom, which some eminences cite to be its source of finances, definitely cannot muster up that much of money. Not even the bank robberies, also cited to be its another major funding source. And wherefrom does the outfit get its deadly stock of weapons, munitions and equipment, which may not be available to the state security apparatus? Statedly, Baitullah Mehsud carried a kind of very sophisticated cell phone not even accessible to the army. And for years Pakistan endeavoured to receive night-vision goggles for its security establishment from the United States, but to no avail. Militants are said to have them since long ago.

Then, no more secret is it now that Fazlullah is ensconced safely in sanctuaries in bordering areas of Afghanistan. And so is known about Faqir Mohmand and his fugitive Bajaur foot soldiers, as also about Omar Khalid Khurasani and his brigands. But has the hierarchy ever inquired where in Afghanistan had Fazlullah disappeared when he misled thousands of Swati green horns to fight on the Afghan Taliban's side at the time of US-led invasion of Afghanistan but had abandoned them the moment invasion started and vanished to resurface in Swat after years? How comes, he came loaded with cash to recruit gunmen in strength and in time raise a potent militant infrastructure to throw a fierce armed challenge to the state? Who was his financier; who was his arms supplier? And who in Afghanistan is feeding him and providing him all the means to carry out terrorist attacks in Pakistan? And whose guests are the fugitive Pakistani militants of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies in Afghanistan?

And has the hierarchy ever inquired as to who founded the Afghan intelligence agency, National Directorate of Security, and who is still bankrolling it? Has it ever inquired about this agency's relationship with America's spy service CIA? Has it ever asked for a briefing on the activities of this Afghan subsidiary of CIA in our tribal areas? After all, how can you deal with an adversary when you are all ignorant about him? To tackle your opponent, you have to first know all about him and understand his motives. But to all appearances, this hierarchy has not even tried to understand what in reality is the monstrosity of terrorism mauling this beleaguered nation so hurtfully. Groping in the dark would lead it to nowhere. And that blind walk it must give up and chalk out a strategy that befits the prevalent conditions of insecurity and lawlessness.