TTP and its pernicious agenda
If any evidence was needed it is here before everyone to see in the form of a video interview. As it did on OBL’s last anniversary, the TTP has vowed to follow in the footsteps of the late al Qaeda chief. Further, it has confirmed that it would continue opposing the democratic system not through argument but by the use of force. The TTP attacks are thus no reaction to the drone strikes or the US invasion of Afghanistan, as the advocates of the terrorists maintain. Nor will they cease after the US and allied troops leave the region or the drone strikes come to an end. In fact the attacks which have killed over 30,000 civilians and military personnel are a punishment for the Pakistanis’ commitment to a nation state within defined geographical boundaries and to democracy and enlightenment. Like OBL, the Pakistani terrorists want to demolish all Muslim states based on geography and to recreate on their debris a world Islamic caliphate presided over by a fanatic, who would then call on the rest of the mankind to either embrace Islam, or surrender and pay Jazia. This explains why governments in Muslim majority countries all over the world are wary of the al Qaeda and its affiliates and have taken measures to suppress them.
The COAS Gen. Kayani was spot on when he made it clear that the war the army was fighting was Pakistan’s war and that the anti-democratic forces would never be acceptable. The General rightly asked, how could a fight against a small faction trying to enforce its distorted ideology over the entire nation by taking up arms, defying the Constitution of Pakistan and the democratic process, considering all forms of bloodshed justified be considered someone else’s war? There is a need to fight against this pernicious and anti-people thinking of the extremist militants and to disable them from launching attacks on innocent people. This is the joint responsibility of the political parties and the army.
In fact it is not Pakistan alone that faces the challenge. The Muslim community all over the world remains under threat from the AlQaeda brood. Whatever other consequences the Arab Spring might have produced, the Arab masses rejected the al Qaeda with one voice by supporting the Islamic parties who wanted to bring change through democratic reforms rather than suicide bombings. Frustrated al Qaeda groups launched an attack at a border military zone in Egypt killing 16 soldiers weeks after Morsi was elected president. While a Turkish military contingent is a part of the NATO force in Afghanistan, both Turkish and Egyptian governments continue to arrest Al Qaeda elements. Every Muslim country needs to fight the threat the way it can.