Terror lives on
Yesterday’s bomb blast in Peshawar is a ghastly reminder, yet again, of how unresolved the terror crisis actually is in the country. By citing a gradually reducing number of terror instances, the advocates of complacency and status quo argue that the war of terror need not be prioritised above everything else for the state to combat. A naive argument. Granted, things aren’t 2009 anymore, but the decrease in instances of terror could be attributed to a host of factors other than a sustainable routing out of the forces of orthodoxy.
First of all, they have received a good drubbing. Not as good as they could have gotten, but a number, if not all, of the groups did find it hard to go about their business the way they used to. That is a state of affairs that ends as soon as the clampdown ends. Secondly, the groups, it has been reported, considered a bit of brand management. This consideration has been going on right since the days the TTP was commanded by Baitullah Mehsud. The plan seemed to have been jettisoned by Hakeemullah Mehsud, his mercurial successor but is reportedly being considered again. The Swat Taliban, whose actions could not have been defended by the most rabid conservatives press sections of the country, made things worse for the aforementioned PR exercise; there could be some compensation for that. Moreover, with (seemingly) centrist political parties taking centre stage in trying to explain how not to fight the Taliban, the latter feels it must do its part for now; since the fascist control that these bodies have over the tribal areas doesn’t really bother the mainstream media, they really don’t have much to lose and everything to gain by staying off the radar. Hence, the lowered activity, barring the periodic attacks on ANP activists, their most consistent nemesis on the political spectrum; civil armed forces; occasional girls’ school and general targets, like yesterday’s transport station.
We don’t need one-dimensional analysis off excel sheets. We need an accurate picture of the holistic whole and act upon it.
