Slowly but surely terrorism returns to Pakistan | Talat Hussain

Syed Talat Hussain

Quietly, but emphatically organized terrorism is making a return to Pakistan. Two provinces, Balochistan and Khayber Pakhtunkhwa, bordering Afghanistan, and, traditionally, the starting point and target of induced violence, have witnessed a steady increase in terrorist activity in the past months. Sindh too has seen attacks in Ghotki, Karachi, and Larkana.

In Balochistan Mand, Turbat, Bolan apart from other areas Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) combined with firing have taken precious lives of law enforcement forces.

Across KP’s Waziristan area even more frequent terrorism has occurred. North Waziristan, the old stronghold of Haji Gul Bahadur and also support base of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement has been particularly violent. Gun-battles, targeted killings, encounters---the full range of terrorism has been on display with audacity and planning. Kohat and Peshawar are also on the radar for heightened terrorism concerns.

A few things are obvious from these developments. One, these are not random incidents. IED attacks show precision in execution and a high degree of sophistication in intelligence gathering. When patrol parties are attacked or bombs are planted that hit convoys, you are not dealing with novices expressing deadly frustrations. You are looking at the work of pros, who excel in bomb-making and know how to follow, trace, and zero in on targets.

Two, these terrorist actions and their diversity shows back-end support---supply of material, logistics, coordination, and guidance. I have covered a lot of ground in ex Fata and in Balochistan in the last twenty years reporting on insurgency and terrorism. There is a striking resemblance in these attacks and those that devastated the country and its economy. Of course, the crucial difference between these events and those of the past is that of scale, frequency, and the spread of the breeding ground.

In the past, terrorists occupied vast chunks of land, from Kohistan to Waziristan aside from settled districts. Or they had local leadership and support in their home-towns. They also attacked city centers, businesses, markets, hospitals, educational institutions----pretty much everything.

This is not the case now. The lost territory has been reclaimed.

Well-entrenched no-go areas have been busted. The writ of the state has been established reinforced by merging Fata agencies into the KP province and by driving out trouble-makers into neighbouring Afghanistan and sealing of big stretches of the north-western border.

However, these incidents cannot be taken lightly precisely because these are taking place after the state has declared final victory against terrorism. After General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiani’s dozens of small and large-scale counter-insurgency and counter-terror ops followed by General Raheel Sharif’s painstaking, slow-moving, costly and over-publicized headway in a part of North Waziristan, Pakistan is supposed to be terror-free.

In this environment, the resurgence of violence rings loud bells of worry especially since the target of these events include the army, the FC, Rangers, intelligence agencies local operatives.

Even more worrying is that the Imran Khan government has had no time to pay attention to this emerging threat. There is no focus. There is no discussion. The prime minister occasionally attempts to counter-terrorism with a grief-and-prayer tweet but that is about all. A more competent political set-up would take these incidents as important warning shots and would spend considerable energies on pre-empting their spread. It would hold special meetings and briefings, formal discourse and assessments. Questions would be asked about the timing and nature of these incidents and the dilemmas these would create for Pakistan in case their frequency increases.

Should we prepare for small-scale operations in the weeks ahead? Do we treat them locally or should there be a national policy that factors in the defence and foreign policy dimensions of the problem? Are these being coordinated at the regional level or there is some sort of an informal command structure that is coming up in our midst?

These and several other core national security concerns would sit on top of the agenda against the backdrop of rising terrorism. But then only a serious political set-up can have these reflections. A circus can only produce cheap and exhausted shows day after day and pretend it is doing such a great job.