Five brave sons of the soil embraced martyrdom on Saturday, including two officers, while valiantly thwarting a terrorist attack on the security forces post in North Waziristan District’s Mir Ali area. According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Army troops successfully foiled the initial attempt at the intrusion, the terrorists rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the post, followed by multiple suicide bombing attacks, which led to the collapse of a portion of a building, resulting in multiple Shahadats and injuries.
Pakistan faces a continued risk of cross-border terrorism from its joint border with Afghanistan, where the terrorist groups have made their hideouts in the far-flung border regions or crossed the Pak-Afghan border and attacked Pakistani troops, and civil and military installations in violence-hit regions. Similar situations exist on the Pak-Iran border, wherein, Baloch insurgents camped on Iranian soil frequently illegally cross the border to perpetrate terrorism in the country. Recently, terrorist groups have brought significant modification in their modus operandi during which they used bomb-laden vehicles and suicide bombers against military installations in a bid to pound maximum casualties to the Armed Forces. This was the third attack of such kind which caused significant losses to the military in recent months.
Pakistan successfully defeated the menace of terrorism on its soil back in 2015. Unfortunately, purblind leaders brought back terrorism to their country as the rehabilitation of terrorists was very dear to them, thus causing a great challenge to the nation’s security and survival. Although brave security forces and Law Enforcement agencies are hunting down terrorists across the country, but terrorist groups enjoy safe havens and backing from neighboring states that make the work of our brave soldiers more hard and complicated.
Realistically, there were persistent calls from the public, civil society, and media regarding the growing risks of a resurgence of terrorism, regrouping, and unlawful activities of the members of banned outfits in KP’s border regions including Buner, Swar, and Dir but neither the local administrations nor provincial and central governments responded to the outcry of the public until this monster surrounds the entire borderbelt for the second time in history. Presently, the menace of terrorism has again shaped into a grave challenge for the Pakistani nation. The reports suggest that the miscreants are well equipped this time with the latest weapons left behind by the US military during withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, neither the Pakistani political leadership nor military strategists and intelligentsia could access the full extent of the problems and linkage between terrorism and extremism that have taken deep routes in our society. A huge chunk of the population in various parts of the country had been radicalized due to policies of the past governments. Pakistani rulers had used religion for political purposes and state-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir not only radicalized the society but encouraged the religious clerics to preach jihad and form armed groups to realize their nefarious agendas.
It is high time that the political leadership feels its responsibility and adopts a nationwide strategy to address the issue of violent extremism by regulating all educational institutes and religious seminaries, enforcing strict laws, banning hate speech, and promoting tolerance, and brotherhood in the society. All successive governments put off this essential task to their successors while the catastrophe multiplied over the years and reached an almost irreversible stage. At the same time, a countrywide merciless counter-terrorism campaign must be initiated to eliminate the peril of terrorism from our soil once and for all.
