Strapping border guards lowering flags and closing gates at the Attari-Wagah border every day with a carefully constructed choreography of contempt, martial music and macho-comic aggression have long symbolised the India-Pakistan face-off. The tragic suicide bombing on the Pakistani side of the check-post, which killed 50 people and injured another 110, is yet another wake-up call that the real danger is not across borders but the cancer of terror growing within.
Wagah hosts probably the most ritualistic border confrontation drama in the world but ironically, Pakistani guards and innocent tourists — many of them women and children — who had gathered to watch the daily ceremony were killed from behind their own lines. The Pakistani Rangers have announced a three-day halt to the border ceremony after this senseless tragedy. Perhaps the time has come to end it altogether and to refocus energies on fighting real issues that confront both countries.
For Pakistan, the Wagah bombing illustrates once again the scale of the challenge facing its army. It also shows how out of control terror outfits on its soil are as they seek to destroy the very edifice of the country. Jundallah, also behind a church bombing in Peshawar last year, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter offshoot of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, have both taken responsibility. The Jamaat claims it was avenging the Pakistan army’s Operation Zarb-i-Azb — tackling militants in North Waziristan while militants elsewhere are nurtured under Pakistan’s Janus-faced ‘good terrorists, bad terrorists’ doctrine.
From Imran Khan to Bilawal Bhutto, the default crisis impulse among Pakistan’s politicians is to ratchet up temperatures with India. Yet, snakes in its own backyard are threatening to devour Pakistan from within. Since 2008, Pakistan had deployed more than 1,50,000 soldiers in northwestern areas and suffered many casualties. As the Americans draw down in Afghanistan, the regional arc of instability will only intensify. With al-Qaida opening a new South Asia chapter while Islamic State shows interest, Pakistan needs to brace for it. So does India. At a time when new hardline Islamist groups make their predecessors seem like friendly neighbourhood uncles, the spectre of mindless terror calls for a new understanding across borders and a new approach. The central security problem of our time is not India versus Pakistan but Pakistan versus Pakistan.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Message from Wagah: Suicide bombing demonstrates Pakistan’s real challenge is from within, not from India
Strapping border guards lowering flags and closing gates at the Attari-Wagah border every day with a carefully constructed choreography of contempt, martial music and macho-comic aggression have long symbolised the India-Pakistan face-off. The tragic suicide bombing on the Pakistani side of the check-post, which killed 50 people and injured another 110, is yet another wake-up call that the real danger is not across borders but the cancer of terror growing within.
Wagah hosts probably the most ritualistic border confrontation drama in the world but ironically, Pakistani guards and innocent tourists — many of them women and children — who had gathered to watch the daily ceremony were killed from behind their own lines. The Pakistani Rangers have announced a three-day halt to the border ceremony after this senseless tragedy. Perhaps the time has come to end it altogether and to refocus energies on fighting real issues that confront both countries.
For Pakistan, the Wagah bombing illustrates once again the scale of the challenge facing its army. It also shows how out of control terror outfits on its soil are as they seek to destroy the very edifice of the country. Jundallah, also behind a church bombing in Peshawar last year, and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter offshoot of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, have both taken responsibility. The Jamaat claims it was avenging the Pakistan army’s Operation Zarb-i-Azb — tackling militants in North Waziristan while militants elsewhere are nurtured under Pakistan’s Janus-faced ‘good terrorists, bad terrorists’ doctrine.
From Imran Khan to Bilawal Bhutto, the default crisis impulse among Pakistan’s politicians is to ratchet up temperatures with India. Yet, snakes in its own backyard are threatening to devour Pakistan from within. Since 2008, Pakistan had deployed more than 1,50,000 soldiers in northwestern areas and suffered many casualties. As the Americans draw down in Afghanistan, the regional arc of instability will only intensify. With al-Qaida opening a new South Asia chapter while Islamic State shows interest, Pakistan needs to brace for it. So does India. At a time when new hardline Islamist groups make their predecessors seem like friendly neighbourhood uncles, the spectre of mindless terror calls for a new understanding across borders and a new approach. The central security problem of our time is not India versus Pakistan but Pakistan versus Pakistan.
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