On Wednesday five soldiers were killed at a check post in Miranshah while a girl and her mother-in-law died in a low intensity explosive attack near an Imambargah in Karachi. When even people like Imran Khan, allegedly having a soft corner for the militants for proposing dialogue as the only way to bring the terrorists round to peace, are vulnerable to attacks, then who is safe becomes an obvious question of concern. He has been warned of dire consequences by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) lest his ambition to fight polio in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa becomes successful. The insanity of the TTP knows no bounds. Their attack on the praying soldiers in Miranshah is a story that has been enacted by the militants many a times without yielding much change in the counter-terrorism strategy of the state. Check posts, the easiest targets to attack the security forces, remain as vulnerable as ever. No measures have been taken to make them more secure. It is business as usual in our overall means and mechanisms to fight terrorism. The people of the country are in no doubt that the Taliban are our enemies. Unfortunately, while the government has been selling the narrative of peace through talks, public opinion on this strategy has not been measured. Still, the president feels that the country lacks the unity to fight terrorism. How did he arrive at this conclusion is anybody’s guess. Those he was addressing in the president’s house, a tribal jirga, were the most affected people because of terrorism and are united to fight the menace. Then what makes the president believe that the country lacks cohesion against terrorism? If he was hinting at the political discourse equivocating on the point of talks with the militants, then that is the failure of the government for not formulating a workable strategy on counter-terrorism that would be acceptable to all the stakeholders. A polarized atmosphere of this intensity about an issue as sensitive as terrorism that is ripping the state apart plays into the hands of the terrorists. The message is loud and clear: the state is seemingly unaware of the seriousness of the threat that confronts it. Add to this malady the loose configuration of intelligence operatives and agencies in the country. There is a plethora of them, all working in their sole and fiercely guarded bubble. The synergy required among the intelligence and law enforcement agencies is not available. Practical follow up of the intelligence passed on to the government is equally dismal. The Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak is one glaring example of this flaw. The Sri Lankan team attack and several others suffered from the same myopic approach, unable therefore to pre-empt terrorist assaults. So the pit dug by the terrorists is growing deeper by the day, while our strategy to counter it is shrinking and facing a vacuum of political will. The tactics of the terrorists have developed and diversified. From rockets to improvised explosive devices to suicide and remote controlled bombings, they are using a whole range of means to awe the state. Their penetration into most parts of the country seems a finished work. From Khyber to Karachi, their strength has multiplied. Karachi is not only a lucrative financial hub for them, providing resources through extortion and kidnapping for ransom, it is also a terror landscape susceptible to generating the required atmosphere to keep the threat perception alive in the public domain. The recent increase in sectarian violence is another hostile tactic of the terrorists. More inflammatory than even bombing since it produces tensions along religious lines, the ploy seems to be to divide and sabotage the country. In short, while the country is engulfed in terrorism, it is confused by the government’s doctrine that considers these enemies malleable, a doctrine that might throw the country into a bigger mess unless right and timely actions are taken to break the inertia. *