Advancing into 2018 it would be all too easy to imagine that the overall security environment in the country is steadily improving. That it has improved in the last two years in undeniable. Incidents are down, deaths are down and the population generally feels less threatened. Positive statements from both the military and civilian arms are across all media platforms. And yet it would be both naive and foolish to imagine that the threat presented by anti-state elements is in any way defeated. They have not gone anywhere despite taking a drubbing, and the climate and social environment in which they live and thrive is unchanged.
The interior ministry (IM) has had a change of management. Ahsan Iqbal has taken over and no new policy or initiative has come from the IM ever since — which is perhaps unsurprising when one considers how many hats Mr Iqbal is wearing. He already had a very big hat with the planning and development ministry. To imagine that he — or indeed anybody — would do well carrying the IM as well is a dangerous folly. It appears that his first priority is to service his original posting, and the IM has ghosted along, effectively dead in the water as it lacks leadership and direction.
The IM carries the corpse of the National Action Plan (NAP) that sprung to life in the wake of the Army Public School massacre. It looked good on paper but quickly got caught in the reefs of irresolution, diverging political interests and priorities and plain old political inertia that has grown as the date of the next election comes ever closer. Simply, there is no NAP. There never was in reality. It was a wish list cobbled together in haste and was falling apart before the ink on the envelope it was written on was dry. There is no nationally developed and implemented counterterror narrative. Madrassa registration is patchy at best. The National Counter-terrorism Authority (NACTA) is underfunded, understaffed and lacks the resources to do its job. And then there was the Faizabad debacle. Sleeping at the wheel has but one consequence. Wake up!
Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2018.
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