Behind the curve again?
Everybody, not the least our own efficient foreign office, duly condemned the recent ISIS attack on a military hospital in the heart of Kabul, yet nobody budged beyond the usual motions. ISIS’s expanding footprint in the region is a reality that even Pakistan’s interior ministry does not deny anymore. Yet both Pakistan and Afghanistan seem content to react to any incursions the so called caliphate makes in their back yard, rather than preempt them.
Just like the Taliban and al Qaeda and TTP threats, the region allows ISIS to grow at its peril. This is the time for a two-tier joint strategy. Not only should this force military and intelligence cooperation between Kabul and Islamabad, especially about cross-border movement, but both, especially the latter, should also take this moment to kick-start their long overdue national counter narrative against terrorism.
It should be driven into the national psyche, with force, that cowardly acts like attacking unarmed people, especially in hospitals, is as far removed from the teachings of Islam as possible. The enemy should no longer be allowed the luxury of leveraging religion for militancy and terrorism. Hopefully Rud-ul-Fasaad, and prospects of breaking the ice finally with Kabul, will factor in these compulsions. All said and done the enemy survives, and often thrives, only because it is allowed to.