Border attacks

Terrorists martyred six Frontier Corps (FC) men with an improvised explosive device (IED) attack on a vehicle in Mach, Balochistan, on Tuesday. Separately, another soldier was martyred during a gunfight with militants in Kech, also in Balochistan. The attacks come less than two weeks after six FC personnel, including an officer, were martyred when their vehicle was targeted with an IED near the border with Iran. The attack was claimed by the Baloch Libera¬tion Army terrorist group.

Perhaps more significantly, it comes just a week after Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa spoke to his opposite number in Iran, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, about the earlier attack. Although Pakistani authorities were initially tight-lipped about the conversation, Iranian state media reported that border security was among the topics of discussion. Specifically, the reports quoted Gen Bajwa as urging exchanges of expert delegations to maintain border security and prevent terrorist movement across the border. Gen Bagheri apparently said Iran was ready to cooperate in combatting militants active on either side of the border.

But this is a tricky situation, compounded by the fact that both sides have recently shown weaknesses in their border management. Pakistan keeps getting attacked by miscreants slipping in from Iran, and vice versa. It is also not surprising that the groups are not known to attack the countries they are accused of hiding out in. Both sides also claim that the militants are foreign-funded by their respective rivals. Those rivals — Saudi Arabia for Iran and India for Pakistan — happen to be key allies for the other.

Unfortunately, diplomacy is not supposed to be easy. For the sake of the security of both nations, we need to find a way to secure our border. Better fencing is a start, but better direction is even more important. Just as Zarb-e-Azb required a follow-up, it might be time for a follow-up to Radd-ul-Fasad so that the gains are not lost. Alternatively, we would need to reexamine why the groups active in Iran survived, since most of them trace their origins to Jundullah, one of the targets of Zarb-e-Azb. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2020.

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