Bannu attack

The attack on a cantonment in Bannu is a grim reminder that the enemy is somewhere around, and kicking. The terrorist act by the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, holed inside Afghanistan, has once again vindicated Pakistan’s stance that the western frontier is the root cause of all ills, and until and unless the Taliban dispensation realises its responsibility to act against rogue elements on their soil, nothing will change for good.

The daredevil attack led to the martyrdom of eight soldiers, apart from inflicting damage on the military garrison. The consolation is that the brave pushback led to the killing of all the 10 terrorists, who were desperate to make their way into the premises, and perished by blowing themselves apart. The modus operandi of such attacks depicts a similar pattern, wherein the security forces are the prime target, and this comes to underpin that the war of attrition is far from being won.

The uptick in terrorist acts has once again pushed the armed forces in high gear, and the proposed Azm-e-Istekham operation is a case in point. The influx of unscrupulous elements from Afghanistan has disturbed the uneasy peace in the settled and merged tribal areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, as well as Balochistan, and mounting casualties call for an instant rebuttal.

Islamabad had been trying to address the fissures on the strategic front through a choreographed military response, and on the diplomatic mosaic by reaching out to Kabul with utmost persuasion. But it seems either real-politick is at work or the paranoid mindset of authorities in Afghanistan, who do want to see stability in Pakistan and the region at large.

This calls for international introspection, and Pakistan’s efforts to exterminate non-state actors must find broader support in the form of regional counter-terrorism cooperation. At home front too, it calls for unison by putting to an end political revulsion, enabling the security forces to focus more coherently on the invisible and faceless enemy.