Unabated violence in NWFP

After a short, deceptive lull, violence is in full swing once again in north-western Pakistan. The week that passed there was blood-soaked, with mayhem stalking through the length and breadth of the North West Frontier Province.
The bloodiest incident that took a heavy toll of 56 dead and twice that number injured took place in Aftab Khan Sherpao's ancestral village when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an Eid congregation. Aftab Khan Sherpao escaped unhurt in this second suicide attack on his life but his younger son was injured (in the first attack in April his elder son was slightly hurt). Two days later, on Sunday, a military vehicle was rammed into by an explosives-laden car apparently driven by a suicide bomber.
Twelve persons, including four soldiers, were killed in the incident that took place near Mingora in Swat, not very far from Kanju where the followers of Mullah Fazlullah blew up a bridge the day before disrupting traffic to and from the upper reaches of Swat Valley. As this violence raged, fresh clashes took place between security forces and tribesmen after a group of armed men set on fire houses and shops in Parachinar city on Saturday.
Isolated incidents of violence, including blasting away video shops, were reported from other places also during the week, sending out a clear signal that peace in the NWFP is hostage to growing militancy which may sometimes be sectarian-based but quite often is the product of Talibanisation which is by and large home-grown and indigenous.
That Taliban activity has increased in the Pakistani areas close to the Afghan border paradoxically lends credence to US Defence Secretary Robert Gate's appraisal that there has been 40 percent decrease in crossing of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters into Afghanistan and that the al Qaeda in Pakistan has reorganised itself.
Most of the violence in north-western Pakistan is blamed on the Afghan Jihad, and that assertion is not entirely misplaced. Alternately, it brought to Pakistan refugees and militants, both carrying their weapons and an unwavering determination of taking revenge on those they brand as traitors. That generated the phenomenon of Talibanisation in Pakistan. But the NWFP has its localised problems as well.
For some thirty years its towns and villages all along the Afghan border had become the smugglers' paradise and a sanctuary for fugitives. Easily available locally manufactured arms and cheap narcotics created a strong base for a new class of vested interest which over the time threw the age-old traditional tribal structure out of its foundations. As the tribal society acquired a new economic and social ambience, it found itself inadequately provided for by the colonial-vintage legal system.
While law and order deteriorated and official corruption became rampant, the governments of the day failed to come up with any relief. That generated movements like Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i- Muhammadi. What we have in Swat today is not very different from mid-90s when Sufi Muhammad raised the banner of Shariah to obtain conditions of a just polity.
No wonder then that the situation in the tribal belt and other parts of the country where violence is on the rise, is highly complicated, defying the urge to solve it by the use of force. Didn't we see how the local commander's assertion the other day that Swat was fast returning to normality was belied the very next week when militants car-bombed a military vehicle and destroyed the bridge.
Also, in the FATA the calm appears tenuous despite some breakthroughs in terms of release of prisoners claimed by the government. And, it is also a fact that not a day passes without red alert being sounded at some government installation. But what we see as response to this growing threat to national security is military-action specific. There appears to be no serious move yet to seriously analyse the threat.
To assert that during the interregnum of elections nothing can be done in other than military areas of action against terrorism is nothing but hoodwinking the common people. The bitter fact is that if the caretakers are immobilised the political leaders too are indifferent to this reality of our national life. Look at their speeches, even manifestos, there is hardly a mentionable position taken by any pretender for power on the apparently unstoppable incidence of terrorism. That should not be the case. Given the enormity of the threat of terrorism, there ought to be a national debate on it and the fact that it is not taking place is very disturbing.