And more seriously
The Da’ish threat is another area where the government has been guilty of complacency. Time and again, despite mounting evidence, it remained in denial about ISIS penetration into Pakistan. Recently, though, a string of episodes has revealed how wrong the government’s assessment of the situation has been all along. First a bunch of ISIS facilitators were picked up from different districts of Punjab. And now it has been learnt that Pakistani people have, indeed, been heading to Syria to partake in the so-called caliphate’s ongoing jihad. The latest to make the news is one Bushra Bibi from Lahore, who was so inspired by al Baghdadi’s teachings that she left with her four children and has been in Syria for some months now.
And suddenly the counter terrorism department has learnt that a far bigger number of men and women has already made the journey to Syria. The men intend to fight. The women go to marry jihadists and bear their children. Already hundreds, if not thousands, of such cases have been reported from across Europe and the Asia Pacific. But while most governments were formulating proactive strategies to counter this unprecedented trend, ours chose denial. Till this week neither the interior ministry nor the foreign office admitted the Da’ish threat in any way.
The issue is far deeper than locals simply going to another country to fight. As the recent Paris nightmare proved, the bigger danger lies in these indoctrinated – and lethally trained – people finding their way back home and continuing their jihad here. Alongside the ongoing war against terrorism, such developments would only give the military unnecessary and needless additional fronts to counter. It would, of course, have been far better to concentrate on the emerging threat at the right time. But even now, it is important not to be complacent any longer. This recent flurry of Da’ish activity must be crushed with full force. No such organisation must ever again be allowed to establish a footprint in the homeland.
