EDITORIAL: The terror outfit, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), embattled with security forces in the erstwhile tribal areas and regularly targeting the police in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) now has the Punjab police in its crosshairs.
A press report quoting a senior police official says the TTP has formed a new wing to attack the law enforcement agencies in Punjab.
About a week ago, it used some local hostages to enter the tribal belt of D G Khan and targeted the Jhangi border post in Taunsa Circle.
Some local people provided food supplies to the militants, which should not be surprising considering the unrestrained spread of sectarian madressahs and likeminded groups all across the country. If that is not challenging enough, the new TTP wing is said to have made contacts with a notorious criminal gang, Ladi, active in the lawless Katcha area, inviting it to join hands to carry out attacks on police check posts.
TTP plan is to inflict pain on the State with minimum losses. Its new wing is aimed at creating fear in the public mind and destabilise this country. Another intention seems to be lending credence to claims of Afghan Taliban hosting the TTP leadership and its fighters — according to a recent UN assessment report, 4,000 TTP operatives are based in Afghanistan — that they are all in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. Yet another objective appears to be to ease military pressure on the militants confronting the security forces in the tribal districts of KP.
Although the police in KP and some other areas have bravely fought with terrorists at the cost of heavy losses in life, outgunned and untrained to deal with terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons, they are a soft target. As the above-mentioned press report points out, in the attack on the Jhangi police station the policemen were no match for the militants equipped with most sophisticated weapons.
Furthermore, it mentions that there are no armed personnel carriers for the police to stop the ingress of militants into tribal districts of Punjab from KP. In view of the emerging threat, Additional IG of the province’s Counter-Terrorism Department visited D G Khan where he held meetings with local police high-ups to strategise the department’s response. Pakistan Army has also increased its presence in the area.
Despite their pledge not to allow any terrorist group use the Afghan soil to launch terrorist attacks on other countries, the Afghan Taliban leadership has done nothing to rein in the TTP, their ideological allies during the war against foreign forces.
Pakistan has tried everything to resolve the issue through direct talks as well as indict contacts with the Afghan Taliban via respected Pakistani religious leaders and jirgas, but to no avail. In a fresh effort to improve relations with the Kabul government in January the JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman visited Kabul at the head of delegation.
Warmly welcomed by the interim Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund and Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Kbir in Kabul, he also met with the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada — to whom the TTP pays allegiance — in Kandahar.
At the time, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the visit would lead to strengthening of brotherhood and positive relations between the two neighbouring countries.
That raised the hope that Kabul would take necessary action to address Pakistan’s security concerns. Instead, the TTP has launched a new scheme to create trouble in this country. It will further exacerbate tensions, which is in neither country’s interest.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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