Suicide attack in Karachi

SSP Aslam said that he would continue the fight against militants and teach them a lesson.

September 19’s early morning suicide attack on the home of a well-known police officer in one of Karachi’s most affluent neighbourhoods indicates two things right away. One, that the country’s urban centres are vulnerable and security there, even outside homes of senior law-enforcement officials, leaves a lot to be desired. And two, that the Taliban are getting increasingly desperate because they are now attacking soft targets such as homes of law-enforcement officials in large cities which are bound to be relatively unsecured as opposed to, say, government or military installations. It is a fact well-established, but rarely appreciated, that law-enforcement officers, more than just about anyone else in Pakistan, are at the frontline of the battle against militancy. They are the ones who man the checkposts, where desperate suicide bombers blow themselves up and they and their families are the ones who are targeted because of their success in apprehending militants. The attack on SSP Chaudhry Aslam’s house showed the police at their best and the militants at their worst. Aslam was undaunted after the attack, saying that he would continue the fight against militants and teach them a lesson — and his response deserved to be praised. The timing of the attack shows just how inhumane the enemy is. His house is located near several schools and the early morning time of the explosion coincided with many children being dropped off to school. One mother and her child were killed in the attack and this most unfortunate and regrettable and exposes the Taliban for the animals and monsters that they are.

In fact, it would be fair to say that the inhumanity and callousness of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been well established by now. In 2008, the TTP killed a policeman in Lakki Marwat and then followed that up by sending a suicide bomber to his funeral — something that they seem to have now perfected to an art form (happened in Dir last week as well). By now, anyone who has ever opposed the TTP in any shape or fashion, should know that their life was at risk and they could be targeted at any time. The question is how to deal with them and their barrage of suicide attacks, and the answer lies in the penetration of their logistical, recruiting and financing networks, and for that our intelligence has to be improved immeasurably.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th,  2011.