And where we stand in our war on terrorism
A state of denial over the existence of the savage terrorist group Islamic State (IS) has persisted in Pakistan since the group’s emergence in neighbouring Afghanistan where it has achieved prominence and has carried out some of the deadliest attacks in recent years. On Friday national coordinator of NACTA Ihsan Ghani rather than underplaying the problem said that the group’s activities in Afghanistan continue to a spill over into Pakistan.
Last year responsibility for the Sehwan Sharif suicide bombing in Sindh that claimed 90 lives and injured 300, was claimed by IS. The attack resulted in a countrywide crackdown in which the army claimed it had killed 100 “terrorists” in 24 hours. It also led to the start of the on-going Radd-ul-Fasaad military operation.
Our enemies are relentless and although multiple military operations have improved the security situation tremendously we still have a long way to go before the threat of terrorism is truly and completely eliminated. On the same day as Ghani held his counter-terrorism forum a roadside bomb in DI khan killed three policemen.
Unfortunately our progress in terms of gathering actionable intelligence and curbing the growing extremism and intolerance in the country leaves much to be desired. Conceived with much fanfare by all stakeholders the National Action Plan (NAP) remains largely unimplemented. Intelligence lapses and the resultant inaction cost lives. If we are to keep IS and other terrorist groups out of the country mere border fencing is not enough – a robust, active and effective intelligence network has to be in place to prevent tragedies.
Extremists continue to spew hatred to corrupt younger minds and the longer they remain unchallenged the bigger the problem we will have to face in the future. On one end there are tall claims of madrassah reforms and on the other there are incidents like the Faizabad sit-in, which displays a lack of will to challenge this growing problem. Time is not on our side in this war and the sooner this is realised the better.
