Targeting girls

There are times when even the most optimistic among us must despair. The case of nine-year-old Sohana Javed is one such moment. The young girl was captured, drugged and outfitted with a suicide belt by the militants and it was only through good fortune that she was detected near a police check-post in Lower Dir before she could detonate. Even if it was not clear before, the sheer inhumanity of the militants can no longer be denied. Talk of intelligence failures is all well and fine, but when the enemy is willing to go to such lengths to inflict violence on society there is very little that can be done beyond taking the fight to them. Peace talks, which militants have previously used as nothing more than breathing space to regroup, cannot work when one side is willing to use and exploit minors as expendable foot soldiers in their war.

This horrifying indication should also show everyone that the military operation carried out in Dir in 2009 was a complete failure that only temporarily defeated militants in the area. Dir has now become a front for a host of militant groups, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Maulana Fazlullah-led Swat Taliban and even the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. Kidnappings, target killings and bombings have been on the rise in Dir almost exactly since the government said the area had been cleared of militants. Above all, it is clear that without the army’s assistance, the police and paramilitary forces are not capable of holding an area. Dir is a strategically vital area since it borders Swat, Bajaur Agency, Chitral and Afghanistan. Leaving it to the militants is as good as admitting defeat in the fight against militancy.

In talk of war, however, we should never forget the human toll militancy has taken on this country. Sohana Javed may have been the first girl to be drugged into carrying out a suicide bombing but the militants have destroyed the lives of countless girls across the region. From the wanton bombings of girls’ schools to the flogging of a young girl in Swat, the militants have specifically targeted girls and that is just one more reason that they need to be stopped.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2011.