Ilyas Kashmiri, responsible for attacks on PNS Mehran and several other key security establishments in Pakistan, has finally been killed in a drone attack in South Waziristan. On Wednesday Afghan Taliban had overrun a security post in Upper Dir killing 28 security personnel and six civilians. Within hours of the claim that the incursion had been repulsed, they launched yet another massive attack. It should be clear now to those who matter that most of the security threats emanate from the country’s west. The US special troops who killed OBL in Abbottabad had also been flown in from the same side. Maulvi Fakir Mohammad’s grim warning, sent presumably from North Wazirisan, should not be taken lightly. The TTP’s Deputy Chief has said the terrorist outfit has changed strategy and would now focus on large-scale attacks on the military installations. While the TTP had previously also brought in fighters from across the porous border to attack Pakistani security forces, what should open the eyes of the authorities is that this time the scale was much larger and one attack followed another.
The TTP’s activities have picked up after My 2. Among other places the outfit has attacked paramilitary cadets, navy personnel and assets, and a US consulate convoy. It is thus challenging the army’s claim that the offensives conducted against the militants have broken their backbone. The momentum of the terrorists’ attacks has to be broken to provide confidence to the common man.
Till recently there have been complaints of militants crossing over from Pakistan’s tribal areas into Afghanistan to conduct attacks. Now a reverse movement seems to be in the offing. The main security threat in the coming months and years is likely to emerge from the areas along the Durand Line where the militants are currently concentrated, particularly from North Waziristan and the terrorists’ allies on the other side of the western border. This calls for an urgent and thorough review of the military’s India-centric security paradigm. There is much more threat from the west than from the east.