“Behind this mask is an idea, Mr Creedy…”
A comprehensive editorial published by this newspaper nearly two weeks ago pointed out Mr Sharif’s vague standpoint regarding militants and militancy. While addressing parliamentarians in Sarajevo, the PM claimed that all the hideaways of Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have been wiped out in Pakistan. Not only this but he also rebutted the mysterious existence of the militant Islamic State (IS) in the country too; which has obviously revealed—his partisan approach of hiding the—reality intentionally.
Sadly – although, probably in hindsight – Pakistan has encountered manifold terrorist attacks since the American led-coalition was physically landed in Afghanistan. Since then, the state within is fighting an incessant skirmishes against the rogue elements so as to get rid of them, which created an ‘existential threat’ to its national security, sovereignty and human civilisation.
Besides, these outfits immensely targeted virtually all segments in Pakistan, in which lots of people have lost their lives without any sacred cause alongside infrastructure and economic destruction. In this case something that is indeed disquieting is the lack of understanding and willful renunciation, of the verity of the matter by the upper strata of the bigwigs in Pakistan.
However, coming to a precise argument, the PM’s claim has no convincing grounds. In fact, the reality is somewhat dissimilar.
The heart-shattering episode of Dec 16, 2014 undoubtedly brought virtually all segments – including civ-mil leadership, civil society, liberal commentators, left and right-wing parliamentarians, hoi polloi and the corporate media – together to acknowledge military’s exhibition against terrorists in the country.
But the matter that they did not manage well was how to deal with terrorism – or, rather, was the low spirited effort to counter the ideologies and extremist mindsets that allowed these medieval barbarians to slaughter human civilisation.
These barbarians justify the callous pogrom of human beings by using religion as the sources of all legitimacy.
In the first critique, neither the sanctuaries of Al-Qaeda nor the Pakistani Taliban have been completely eliminated, rather, they have been covertly and overtly shifted from Fata to mainland Pakistan. In this context, the militant outfits of these groups found a reliable shelter because of an already prevailing ideological sources in urban and rural centers of Pakistan.
In mainland Pakistan, they easily found ideological and logistical patronage too that reinstated regional regrouping once again among the militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan. After their expulsion from Fata, the regional militant groups formed IS-Khorasan factor in the Af-Pak region that emerged as a robust stakeholder in this world of terror.
Hence, the meteoric rise of militant Islamic State (IS) was not being prognosticated by terrorism experts, civ-mil leadership and the common inhabitants. But its rise was inevitable because of the presence of a vast jihadi infrastructure and ideological kernel in Pakistan.
However, this group in collaboration with Jammat-ul-Ahrar (an offshoot of TTP) and Lashker-e-Jhangvi-Al Alami (an offshoot of LeJ) carried out more lethal terrorist assaults in Pakistan. The year 2016 was a bloodiest year, which had seen terrible onslaughts claiming more than 400 innocent civilian lives and many more wounded.
Examples demonstrate that the attack on legal fraternity and police training academy too were claimed by IS and its regional allies such as JA and LeJ-A. Perhaps, these episodes of horror indubitably posited that the presence of militants in Pakistani soil is hitherto a largest security threat for the country.
So, how could the PM claim that the sanctuaries of Al-Qaeda and TTP have been eliminated in Pakistan? Is he not cognizant of what the terrorists and terrorism really are? Perhaps, on all fronts, PM committed mistakes while rejecting the presence of gigantic jihadi outfits in Pakistan. Denying their existence is really destined to only result in providing them further emancipation, and as well as ideological and material support from the conservative religious demagogues. Miserably, Mr Sharif is in fact denying the reality. But the nation is still listening his remarks about terrorism uncomplainingly.
The fight against terrorism cannot be won without eliminating extremism. By this I mean eliminating extremist thoughts and the ideological sources of terrorism first, which would lead us to eventually dealing with terrorism.
In short, concealing the facts is more dangerous than divulging. The upper strata in civ-mil leadership should not deceive the nation through their elusive remarks. Rather they need to work honestly to curb the cancer of terrorism in Pakistan.