#Pakistan - Are we really serious about tackling terrorism?

This year Pakistan received the lowest ranking on the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) since 2006. It is also the third consecutive year that fewer Pakistanis have died in terrorist attacks than the previous year. However, Friday morning was a reality check for all concerned. Three terrorists dressed in burkas stormed the hostel of the Peshawar Agriculture Training Institute (ATI), killing nine and injuring 37. The military and security forces involved in neutralising the terrorists who attacked ATI and prevented them from capturing more hostel buildings, thereby killing more students and staff members can pat themselves on the back all they like — but neither they nor Pakistan’s civilian leadership should forget that for nine homes, it was 16 December, 2014 all over again.

The Peshawar attack took place exactly a week after a senior police leader Ashraf Noor was assassinated in the same city. A suicide bomber targeted the late AIG Noor on 24 November. Earlier that month, at least three people were killed and six others wounded when a senior cop’s vehicle was targeted by a suicide bomber in Quetta. At least 121 people were killed in eight terrorist incidents this February. This clearly shows that despite recent successes, Pakistan is still one of the most terrorism-afflicted nations in the world. We need to stop relying on military operations alone to deal with this problem and take up a more comprehensive approach to tackle the menace of extremism and terrorism.

A good place to start would be to improve our relationship with Afghanistan. Operation Radd-ul-Fasad may have reduced terrorist incidents in Pakistan by a large number, but the terrorists are still escaping into neighbouring Afghanistan and continue to conduct operations against Pakistan from there. According to police and military officials, the terrorists who attacked ATI also had handlers in Afghanistan. This situation can only be resolved if Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan improves and the two countries engage in cooperative military operations and intelligence sharing.

Afghanistan’s complaints of Pakistan harbouring the Haqqani network and others must not be brushed under the carpet. We need to demonstrate that our concern for terrorism is wide-ranging and not just limited to certain groups. It is surely easy to blame Afghanistan but apparently more difficult to fix our own problems.

It is high time that those at the helm remember the existence of the seemingly defunct National Action Plan (NAP). If it wasn’t in bad shape already, it was completely torn apart in the conclusion of the Faizabad fiasco when the government capitulated to extremists who staged an illegal dharna, openly utilised rhetoric containing hate-speech and glorified the murderer Mumtaz Qadri. That it happened under the watch of an elected cabinet and was brokered by the military says it all.