Bruised yes, broken — no

The resurgence of terrorism in Karachi in the first six months of this year — there have been 160 terrorism-related incidents between January 1 and June 5 with 138 dead — spurred the visit of Army Chief General Raheel Sharif to the city on June 26. In his statement at the close of his visit, he said that terrorists were “badly bruised and isolated” and inclined towards softer targets as a result of the action taken against them. He also told security officials to hunt down the terrorists and to “pre-empt their moves and frustrate their designs”. With the recent uptick in terrorism and several high-profile killings and kidnappings, questions have been raised as to the effectiveness of the ongoing Karachi operation.

Questions have also been raised about the alleged heavy-handedness of law-enforcement agencies as well as a perceived lack of impartiality when it comes to targeting political party members allegedly involved in acts of terror or criminality. As has been recently pointed out in these columns, what is in train is low-intensity urban warfare. The terrorists and criminal elements are deeply embedded, they have robust support structures and they are durable, able to fill in the gaps caused by state-agency activity very quickly. Their command and control structures are flexible as are those of all guerrilla and many criminal organisations, and designed both for maximum security and reflexive regeneration.

This is not a war then that can be fought with kid gloves on or with one hand tied behind the back of the forces of law and order. War is war, low intensity or otherwise, and there are casualties on both sides, some of which are going to be collateral damage. As unpalatable as this may sound, innocents are going to get hurt. This does not, however, mean that strenuous efforts should not be made on the part of law-enforcement agencies to make their procedures as immune to abuse, misuse and highhandedness as is possible. War is never clean. It is a dirty messy business for all concerned. And as yet it is not won in Karachi, and when the army chief talks of terrorists being bruised and isolated, he is correct — they are wounded but the damage is not mortal. It needs to be.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.