Bannu jailbreak

The audacious Taliban attack on a jail in Bannu that allowed nearly 400 prisoners, including hardcore militants (among them a former Pakistan Air Force technician convicted of an assassination attempt on former president Pervez Musharraf), represents a security failure of unimaginable proportions. In the days ahead, we are sure to see various actors trying to explain their incompetence. The federal government will likely claim that since prisons are a provincial subject it holds no responsibility for the attack. This rationalisation should not be accepted. With militants being housed in prisons, it becomes the responsibility of the centre to ensure that all prison officers are properly trained in counter-terrorism. As we have previously seen with the attacks on the Lahore police training school, militants are ready to strike police forces at any time and so police officers need to be ready for such attacks. It is clear that they are in no position to fend off militants right now.

Law-enforcement agencies — civilian as well as military — cannot be let off the hook for the prison break. Intelligence is chiefly the responsibility of the agencies and they have failed in this instance. Planning a raid of this magnitude requires a lot of time and planning, which should have given the intelligence agencies sufficient opportunity to detect and disrupt it. Furthermore, given numerous reports all suggesting that the escapees were driven away in buses, would suggest complicity at some level among the prison security staff. The raid is also a reflection of the failure of the military to defeat the Taliban despite the operations it has carried out in the tribal areas.

Apart from the intelligence failure, the Bannu break-out will also make the Taliban stronger because some of its most valuable planners are now free to resume their militant activities. Not only was this attack an indication of how strong the Taliban remains, its success has made it even stronger, as it has brought many militants back into its fold. This bodes ill for a government and security establishment that has been made to look weak and ineffectual in front of the daring and coordination of the Taliban. The fight against militancy is looking tougher than ever.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2012.