Pakistan: Putting an end to pipedreams

Realistic approach is the key to ending terrorism

The two terrorist incidents on Wednesday are the latest testimony to the bankruptcy of PML-N’s policy of peace talks with the TTP. Early in the morning, Mullah Fazlullah’s men operating from Kunar in Afghanistan fired on Pakistani posts in Bajaur Agency, killing seven soldiers. Within hours a suicide bomber killed two serving Lt Colonels on way to Tarnol from Rawalpindi in a vehicle. The later incident raises questions about the working of the security agencies. What needs to be probed is how the terrorists managed to get real time information about the officers’ itinerary and the exact timing of the travel. The leakage reveals that the agencies have yet to set their house in order.

The government has wasted enough time pipe dreaming about peaceful resolution of the issue of militancy. It is high time it understands that it is futile to make the terrorists realise the importance of peace before they have been thoroughly defeated, deprived of safe havens and made to feel that they are at the mercy of the state. That the prime minister attended the funeral of the two army officers was commendable as it showed that the government stood by the troops as they fought the Pakistani Taliban. What is needed is to rally the entire nation against the terrorists.

It is relatively easier to sort out the TTP leaders inside the tribal agencies. To deal with those who have set up headquarters across the border in Kunar and Nuristan provinces is a much more difficult task. The group led by TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah and an equally unscrupulous and cruel Omar Khalid Khorasani has kidnapped and decapitated soldiers, conducted the roadside bombing that killed Maj Gen Sanaullah Niazi and launched three cross border attacks in Bajaur over the last ten days. Besides, the group is also responsible for the abortive attack on Malala Yousafzai. The military cannot cross the border to attack the group which has set up camps visible from Pakistan’s side. This underlines the regional dimension of terrorism which requires regional solutions. The group has been launching attacks since 2012 but neither the Afghan Taliban nor Haqqani network, long nurtured as assets, have extended any help to remove the threat. To destroy Fazlullah’s nest the government has no realistic option other than reaching out to the Afghan government. This will require quid pro quo. Both the government and the army have to realise that it is more important to secure Pakistan than gain influence in Afghanistan.