Review of anti-terrorism strategy

After lying low for a while, the terrorists are on the rampage again. On Monday, they struck at three different places in the country, but the most stunning was the suicidal attack on the vehicle the Surgeon General of Pakistan Army, Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, was riding.
A man, believably in his teens and disguised as a beggar, approached the general's car as it waited at a traffic signal on a main road of Rawalpindi and blew himself up, killing the three-star general, his guard, driver and five civilians. About a dozen others were injured in this attack which took place hardly a kilometer away from the General Headquarters (GHQ). This was not the first terrorist attack in the garrison town of Rawalpindi.
In an attack last December, terrorists killed Benazir Bhutto as she was coming out of the Liaquat Bagh after addressing a public meeting. But what sets apart the Monday incident from the previous is the fact that casualties included the highest ranking military officer killed by terrorists so far. Earlier, a terrorist attack took place in Mansehra where an armed gang stormed the office of an NGO and set it on fire after spraying the office workers with bullets.
According to media reports, four charred bodies, including one of a woman, were retrieved from the burnt-out office building. A local official later said the attackers overwhelmed the security men on duty and after the carnage escaped to a nearby jungle. Another incident of terrorism on previous Monday took place in Dera Bugti area where three security personnel and a civilian fell victim to two remote-controlled explosions.
The targets, the perpetrators and the tools used in the three incidents were distinctly different from each other, a fact that brings out the complexity of the menace of terrorism confronting Pakistan. In the attack on General Mushtaq Baig's car, there was the lone suicide bomber who spotted a military object and struck it, within the red-alert security cordon, close to the army's headquarters. In the second incident, the target was an NGO which was working in the area for welfare of women and children.
The attackers came to the NGO office in full view of public, fired upon the inmates, blew up the building and walked away. In the third incident, a remote-control bombing was carried out by unidentified men but surely the ones who are fighting the security forces ever since the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. Clearly, in the first incident the target was the Pakistan army, which is presently engaged in a bloody conflict with Pakistani Taliban in the FATA region.
In the second they struck a foreign-funded outfit which is engaged in voluntary work to improve the quality of life of women and children in Mansehra and its surroundings. And the third incident could be easily related to the ongoing provincial-autonomy oriented insurgency in Balochistan. These are obviously three different situations, defying commonly known approaches applied to explain the incidence of growing terrorism in Pakistan.
There does not seem to exist a monolithic entity with an all-encompassing control over various bands of terrorists and variant brands of terrorism. There are some who claim they don't target women, and therefore, they were not involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. There are others who relish carrying out indiscriminate killings. Then, some of the terrorism stems from the religious bigotry and perceptive clash of civilisations.
The insurgency-inspired terrorism in Balochistan has nothing to do with religion; it is all about the rights of people of the federating units. An equally complicating factor is the aftermath of Afghan Jihad and its spillover in Pakistan's north-western regions. The disproportionate collateral damage caused by the United States' single-objective mission to wipe out the remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban, has created a whole generation of Pushtoon revenge-seekers.
Growing terrorism in Pakistan is a complex phenomenon, and it should be admitted without much hesitation that no significant progress has been so far made in tackling this menace. This calls for a comprehensive review of the strategy to combat terrorism, taking into account its different causes besides various existing and emerging ground realities. It cannot be denied also that in tackling terrorists the official hand was overplayed which provoked negative response from various sections of society.
So now that a new parliament has been elected and a broad national forum has become available, the strategy to combat terrorism should be put to a comprehensive analysis and debate. Such a review is also strongly warranted by the remarks and statements made by the political leaders about Pakistan's role in the war on terror during the run-up to the polls and even after that.
Only the other day, Nawaz Sharif questioned the logic of present official line on terrorism. Undoubtedly, a counter-terrorism policy made by the parliament would have greater chance of success for it would be carrying the support of the people. Time has come for a change of policy.