It is time we accept hard reality that our existing security strategy and methodology is insufficient to efficiently contain and tackle onslaught of terrorism unleashed by religious, sectarian, ethnic and criminal terrorism, controlled and funded from within and abroad. If any proof is needed, frequent attacks on sensitive security installations and civilian institutions like schools, markets, places of worship etc should be enough.
Success in war against terrorism depends upon plugging loopholes created by rampant corruption within our airport, port, coastal and border check-posts, maintaining an efficient accessible computerized database of all individuals, vehicle engine and registration numbers, cell phones, schools and seminaries, land and constructed household ownership records and criminal history of every person living in Pakistan. Without such a comprehensive data base, success in war against terrorism will only be limited. Unfortunately institutionalized corruption within paid bureaucracy and lack of political will of ruling elite will be biggest obstacle, which must be surmounted because this is a war for survival of Pakistan.
What Pakistan needs is a trained dedicated force specialized in forensic, computer science and knowledge about anti-terrorism warfare, to tackle highly trained and committed enemy from within, brainwashed by their handlers that this a religious war. We will have to cut off their funding and totally eliminate armament and explosive supply channels, apart from destroying their existing sanctuaries. Anti-terrorist force must have knowledge and capacity to detect and jam latest communication technology used by them, independently of other state apparatus to prevent leakages which occur presently.
Pakistan has disciplined professional armed forces, trained to fight a known army, but it lacks competent civil law enforcement agencies, lacking in technological capacity to handle insurgents using modern guerilla warfare, communication technology and trained in forensic detection. NACTA must have a dedicated independent skilled workforce like Homeland Security, powerful enough to withstand interference, free from administrative control of others, working in coordination with other intelligence and security agencies. Those recruited by NACTA must be its dedicated employees, governed and administratively controlled by it and not be on deputation from other security agencies.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
