The need to defeat terrorism
Despite the ominous happenings in and around Karachi airport earlier this week the PML-N leadership remains wedded to the idea of talks with the TTP. While the army plans airstrikes to finish off the militants in Fata the government keeps the door for parleys open. There is a tendency in some of the party leaders to find a scapegoat for the crimes committed by the terrorist network. Shahidullah Shahid has owned the attack on Karachi airport which besides killing twenty four innocent people is leading to negative economic consequences for the country while TTP’s rising star Khorasani has owned the firing on the ASF camp with as much equanimity as he had displayed when announcing the decapitation of 26 FC soldiers.
Last year, Fazlullah had similarly claimed that his men had executed the blast that killed Maj Gen Sanaullah Niazi. The militants’ apologists, however, are intent on putting the responsibility of the former’s misdeeds on someone else. One can understand people like Hafiz Saeed blaming India for the terrorist attack, but what remains incomprehensible is that Ch Nisar too should be in the same company. He first insisted that the attackers in Karachi seemed to be foreigners and then reverted to the Indian origin of the weapons in their possession, leaving little doubt about what he was hinting at.
The sooner the poppycock about the TTP’s avowed patriotism is stopped the better. Whether the terrorist network employs Uzbeks or Pakistanis as tools matters little. Similarly, whether its minions use American, Israeli, Chinese or Indian weapons is beside the point. To try to exonerate the TTP is outright disrespect for thousands of innocent Pakistanis, both civilian and military, who fell victim to the network’s attacks.
The PML-N government needs to concentrate on defeating terrorism and extremism. It has to meanwhile improve its ties with neighbours to be able to fulfil the task efficiently. Those mollycoddling the TTP should learn a lesson from what is happening to Iraq and Syria.