Editorial

Hunting the terrorists

Terrorists are good at what they do; highly trained and motivated they have no recruitment problems

Editorial August 01, 2017

PHOTO: REUTERS

Apart from the obvious costs in terms of lives lost and the expenditure of the state in combating terrorism, there are aspects that are less obvious, with a malignant ability to metamorphose by groups thus engaged being one of them. This is a relatively recent phenomenon as groups that hitherto had been dubbed ‘terrorist’ — the IRA in the UK and the ETA in Spain for instance — changed little in structural terms throughout their histories. The terrorism of the 21st century is a different beast. It is fragmented, highly mobile and self-actuating, capable of independent thought and action on the part of an individual not formally linked to any known group and also capable of large-scale coordinated attacks across borders.

Against this background all governments, including Pakistan, are tasked with maintaining the safety of the populace and fighting the terrorists — wherein lie several difficulties. Today we learn that the CTD in Karachi is in receipt of intelligence reports that sectarian organisations were ‘now receiving support from Islamic State (IS)’. It will be recalled that the presence of IS in Pakistan has been denied on innumerable occasions by the current government. There are warnings that if sectarian groups supported by IS ‘joined hands’ their operational capacity would be enhanced and in upper Sindh an escalation of attacks may be expected.

Terrorists are good at what they do. Highly trained and motivated they have no recruitment problems, and in a society such as Pakistan which has been drip-fed radicalisation for decades they find a sure footing. Terrorists do not exist in a vacuum. They need food, water, shelter and transport. That they find those with ease is where the counter-terror battle needs to focus, and this the state has cardinally failed to do. Unless and until the state decides to no longer tolerate terrorism the people of Pakistan are going to continue to die of its effects. Terrorism. It’s a matter of choice.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2017.

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COMMENTS (1)

Solomon2 | 7 years ago | Reply As discussed after the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, these problems began with the training of anti-Soviet Afghan resistance forces in the 1980s: the trainees, being under ISI control, were outside the jurisdiction of local law enforcement, and thus could abuse Pakistanis in cities where they trained with impunity. Soon, it seems, no one could tell the difference between a "genuine" ISI-trained militant and those, like Osama Bin Laden's group, which operated outside the system - and it was obviously safer for abused citizens not to ask. So I don't see how Pakistan will ever eliminate its terrorist problems until its military stops training its own "stateless" actors. Then there will no longer be the excuse, "Oh, he wasn't one of ours, so we're not responsible" from either the police or the intelligence services.

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