EDITORIAL: The crux of a report compiled by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) that the country witnessed a 56 percent spike in terrorist attacks in 2021 is quite sobering. Indeed, even as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a meeting on national security in Lahore the other day, newspapers carried front-page headlines about two soldiers martyred in a gun battle in Waziristan. And if, as the premier observed, rather lamented, ignoring the role of the provinces in the National Action Plan (NAP) contributed to the resurgence in terrorism, then it must be addressed without wasting any more time.
The political temperature of the times makes it difficult to make out when some of our senior-most politicians really fear for the country and when they are simply trying to portray their opponents in a bad light — and the PM did make a point to mention that provinces were sidelined in PTI’s (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s) time — therefore it becomes even more important to get to the facts; especially in matters of national security. So far details are sketchy and only one leading daily has been able to quote “a senior security official”, that too on the condition of anonymity, as saying that “…provinces were to make legal, judicial, police and madressah reforms, ban hate literature, [ensure] de-weaponisation, and impart special training to civil security agencies. But unfortunately, that has not happened at the provincial level”.
If all this is true and they have identified what has been lacking, then it shouldn’t be too hard to put the Programme back on track. But, surely, provincial responsibility, or lack of it, is not the only area where implementation of NAP left a little something to be desired. Concerns about lack of communication between the dozens of agencies that litter the country’s security landscape have also made it to the press time and again. Things quieted down a little bit because the enemy beat a hasty retreat across the border into Afghanistan when the military put its foot down after the Peshawar school attack marked the darkest day in the country’s history. But they’ve clearly been up to their old ways again since the Taliban retook Kabul in August last year.
And now, the government trying to breathe fresh life into NAP while it is also negotiating a ceasefire with TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) sends conflicting signals about how it really intends to posture on terrorism; especially since it’s not been long since reports about a merger between TTP and BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) shocked the whole country. The present dispensation must be credited for routing the talks through parliament, on Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s insistence apparently, but that also sidesteps the very valid point that much of the country does not agree with these talks to begin with. NAP also mentioned crushing the terrorists, not releasing their prisoners or hammering out peace deals with them.
It seems the entire security calculus needs to be revisited. NAP provides perhaps the best blueprint to meet our needs in the present setting, but only if it is followed in letter and spirit. And that is not going to be possible so long as the government follows parallel and quite different policies about the same matter. If provinces have been slacking, they must be made to pull their socks up; there can be no two opinions about it. But it is the central government that needs to be crystal clear in its thinking first. It’s already obvious that all the help the Afghan Taliban can offer with regard to the TTP is enabling talks with them. That’s a far thing from the promise they made, of sorting them out, when Pakistan facilitated peace talks with the US and helped bring the long, ugly war-on-terror to an end.
No doubt the number-one item on the PM’s security agenda is still eliminating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations from all corners of the motherland. The first priority, then, ought to be completely dismantling all terrorist infrastructure, sleeper cells, communication network, etc., on home soil. And once we have achieved complete superiority over the enemy, there would be little harm in talking peace with the few that remain and promise to abandon the way of the gun and the bomb forever. But for now everybody, provinces and the centre, ought to have only one goal in mind; and that is to crush all terrorists and terrorism that dare cast a bad eye on Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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