Massive carnage in Wah

The suicide-bombers are back. On Thursday, they struck at the gates of Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) with unprecedented vehemence killing over 70 persons and injuring twice that number. It was the fourth such suicide bombing attack during the last fortnight.
Earlier they had struck at a Pakistan Air Force bus which was on way to Badaber airbase, near Peshawar; blasted a police station in Lahore and bombed a mourning crowd at the gates of Dera Ismail Khan's main hospital. In synchronising the timing of the twin-blast attack at the gates of the high-security POF garrison at the shift time the purveyors of the massive carnage demonstrated their will and ability to hit targets of their choosing.
Within a few hours of the incident a spokesman of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing as "revenge for military air strikes in Bajaur", and promised more in coming days at various places including Karachi and Islamabad. This is the second wave of suicide bombings inside Pakistan.
By targeting security personnel and installations as prime targets the militants' leadership has conveyed that their actions are in retaliation to the army operation against them.
Even before the TTP owned up the recent incidents of suicide-bombings as blow-back to the ongoing military operation this relationship was confirmed when bombings stopped as soon as the newly elected coalition government halted military action and promised a multifaceted approach to resolve imbroglio of growing insurgency in the tribal region.
Now that negotiations with militants have been put on hold and military action is in full swing the militants are increasingly using their special weapon of suicide-bombers. Given that relationship, the ball is clearly in the government's court - it can preempt the incidence of suicide-bombing by halting the ongoing military operation in tribal areas.
PM's Advisor for Interior Rehman Malik's assertion in the National Assembly that 'either we hand over Pakistan to the Taliban or fight back' is too a simplistic sum-up of a complicated situation to merit serious comment. Obviously, the elected members of the Lower House did not agree with him.
As Prime Minister Gilani conceded to follow whatever policy the house framed, his coalition-partner Maulana Fazlur Rehman called for a review of the "US-led war on terror" policy and Aftab Sherpao strongly opposed use of air power against militants.
One would not be greatly surprised if the government loses in a debate in parliament on the ongoing military operation in Bajaur and Swat, not to the opposition but to its own members. The bitter fact is that resumption of military action in Swat and Bajaur areas did not have a clear parliamentary mandate.
There are certain fallacies about the present turmoil in the tribal region that need to be clarified and corrected in order to obtain a rational debate on this crucial issue. For example, did Islamabad ever have the kind of writ in the FATA and other tribal areas, which it has in the rest of Pakistan? The answer is no, because they were never treated as equal partners in the federation, a fact testified by all three constitutions we have had.
Again, if military operation was not launched in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad or Peshawar from where most of the important al Qaeda elements were recovered why it should be launched in the tribal areas? Is there a doubt about the loyalty of the tribal people - who got for Pakistan that little part of Kashmir we call Azad Kashmir?
Ensuring the kind of writ of state we have in some areas is not so simple to replicate in the tribal areas. Without allowing political parties to function in those areas it will not be possible to bring them in the mainstream. Precipitating an Armageddon involving a hundred thousand troops without a political process to tackle its blowback would only yield further grief.
In the military operation in tribal region more Pakistanis have lost their lives than in all the wars and battles with India. Then there are three quarter of a million displaced Pakistanis, facing stark conditions. All this is avoidable provided the elected coalition government shifts focus from its internal squabbles and controversies to more serious matters like turmoil in the tribal region.
And it is quite possible now that the compelling reason for pursuing a certain policy embraced by ex-president Pervez Musharraf is not there anymore. The elected government owes to its mandate that it should shun use of force alone and sit for talks with our tribesmen - before irreparable damage is caused to the federation.