On Friday, September 18 terrorists stormed the PAF Camp in Badaber, near Peshawar. Twenty-nine people, including 16 people who were praying inside a mosque and seven others preparing for prayers in their barracks, were martyred during the attack.
The Quick Reaction Force, however, cleared the camp after killing all 13 militants. Muhammad Khorasani, the spokesman of the defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is stated to have said that the TTP was responsible for the Badaber attack.
The attack was the biggest in the country after the one on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16 last year in which 147 persons including 122 children were martyred.
That incident had brought the entire nation to one point: to wipe out terrorism with a renewed resolve. And the armed forces under a determined chief General Raheel Sharif transformed this national resolve into action by undertaking attacks on militants’ sanctuaries in North Waziristan and elsewhere in the country. The blood shed by the 29 martyrs and an equal number of injured has, however, thrown up some very precious lessons for forestalling similar incidents in the future.
The first lesson is that intelligence reports on impending terrorist attacks should be taken more seriously. Reportedly, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had issued on September 3, and later on September 8, a specific detailed warning of a terrorist attack on the PAF Badaber Camp. The report had even mentioned the number of attackers as 14. The mission of the militants who had planned the Badaber attack was to draw international attention as well as reiterate their claim that they are alive and kicking despite all the measures taken against them by the Pakistani government.
Intelligence warnings in the past too did not receive a serious response from installations, which were then later targeted by the militants. In October 2014, warnings were issued about terrorists’ plan to attack an Army Public School. In 2013, terrorists broke the DI Khan Jail, located in the midst of a populated area, and freed more than 248 prisoners including 30 hardcore militants, although intelligence agencies had conveyed specific and accurate warnings much before the incident. The intelligence report was so specific that it mentioned the militants would launch a three-pronged attack from Sabzi Mandi, Girls Degree College and the Town Hall and would use 14 vehicles.
Weeks before the Lahore Wagah Border attack the country’s intelligence agencies had conveyed a warning to the concerned authorities; yet the attack went through. It appears that prolonged vigilance based on a series of intelligence warnings about impending militant threats peters out.
The second lesson is to concentrate less on the ‘foreign hand’ involvement formula. The mention of involvement of other countries in a terror-related incident may sound good for a public statement to mitigate attention to our own security lapses, but it does not help stop reoccurrence of heinous acts of the militants.
In the Badaber Camp incident Defence Minister Khwaja Asif came out with a statement that the terrorists had originated from Afghanistan, and blamed the Afghan government for not controlling them. This was a naïve statement, giving the impression that the Afghan government had planned the attack. On the other hand DG ISPR Major General Asim Bajwa gave a more sensible statement saying the attack was planned by terrorists holed up in Afghanistan.
The fact is that the Afghan government has no capacity to control militants in that country. On the contrary their own law-enforcement agencies are subjected to lethal attacks frequently – for which the Kabul government blames terrorists intruding from Pakistan.
A tangible solution can be obtained only when officials of Kabul and Islamabad put their heads together and work out a joint strategy to stop cross-border attacks by militants. Even if there is evidence of involvement of foreign players their nefarious plans cannot succeed without assistance from local sympathisers and facilitators. How could the 13 men who attacked the Badaber Camp travel from their base in Afghanistan all the way to Peshawar by passing all the security check posts unless they were assisted and guided by local facilitators?
The third lesson is that at the entrances of important military installations, like the Badaber Camp, there should be one more check post away from the main entrance. The second check post should be established at least 500 yards away from the main entrance. If there is a skirmish at the outer check post the main installation, its stores and personnel will be saved from damage; it will also serve as a warning to personnel at the main entrance to take position.
In the case of the Badaber Camp an outer check post should be established now on the main Inqilab Road. People using that road will face inconvenience but so do residents of Peshawar Cantonment who have to pass through so many security check posts every day. Due to no checks in the past, the mushrooming civilian population has come close to the boundary wall of the Badaber Camp; this poses a security risk. Some of the houses adjacent to the camp’s boundary wall should be vacated after due compensation.
The 20-point National Action Plan to fight terrorism has not been implemented in letter and spirit. One of the major points was action against madressahs that harbour terrorists and facilitate their activities. According to the estimate given by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, only five percent madressahs indulge in terrorist activities. Since we have recorded 60,000 registered madressahs that means 3,000 madressahs are ‘black’ listed. However, the daily news bulletin hardly mentions any action taken against these ‘black’ madressahs. The reality is that terrorists receive unflinching support from their local sympathisers sitting in these (black) madressahs.
The country has received a great respite from the atrocities that were routinely unleashed by the militants in the past; that is due to successful military action in North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency. Sporadic incidents like the one in the Badaber Camp on September 18 have to be accepted as a fate accompli in a war on terror which is normally a prolonged affair.
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