A suicide blast in North Waziristan killed a soldier and a civilian and injured another nine on Wednesday. Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier has quickly transformed into a hotbed for terrorist activity; the country’s most difficult decisions in recent years have involved militants operating in its mountainous north. In countering the TTP’s unrelenting affronts against the state, Islamabad has sought both political conciliation and military force. But it is becoming increasingly clear that negotiations, which have fallen apart one too many times to count, are no longer a viable option. The government has always had a flimsy grip on the country’s tribal northwest, which is largely governed by an administrative system that goes back to the British, dependent entirely on local leaders who are not accountable to external bodies of law. Little has been done to integrate these tribal agencies into mainstream Pakistani society. In recent decades, this area has undergone a political transformation, with older tribal customs giving way to radical influences, accelerated by the arrival of the Afghan Taliban in the 1980s. Until 2009, the government was reluctant to view the Taliban’s influence as a full-fledged insurgency until the Taliban’s militants advanced into Swat, prompting the government to assume a shift in direction. It was a rude awakening like no other-the army quickly initiated a campaign to remove insurgents from the region. With the political establishment and media by its side, the military was able to sustain an uninterrupted offensive against the TTP. The operation substantially degraded the operational capacities of the TTP, which splintered into various factions. Civilian deaths from terrorist violence plummeted from more than 3,000 in 2012 to a little over 600 in 2016. However, the state’s triumphs against terror did not last long. As early as 2018, the TTP was beginning to make a comeback-radicalization runs deep in Pakistan, and extremist ideologies are prevalent all across the country. Locals are still traumatized by terrorism. It is not surprising then that the TTP has emerged once more, this time with a revised manifesto that has mainly targeted security personnel so far. Pakistan’s ambivalent approach towards the TTP, friendly at times then violently coercive, creates many doubts about its leadership. selective counterterrorism posture hasn’t helped either, targeting groups that stage attacks in Pakistan and protecting those who draw their support from the state. The state must decide what side it is on and commit to eliminating extremist ideologies as a whole. Without this, it is improbable that Pakistan will find relief from its terrorist elements. *